DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i12.032

Pages: 4344-4353

Lung masses, as diagnosed clinico radiologically, include both non-neoplastic and neoplastic lesions, and are a cause of great anxiety to both patient as well as treating physician. The present study based on 40 patients with lung masses, who underwent FOB procedure, was aimed to assess the utility of cytological sampling in diagnosing lung masses. In present study, the FOB was used to visualize the tracheao-bronchial tree and simultaneously the cytological samples of washing and brushing as well as biopsy were taken. These cytology samples were fixed and stained with papaniculaou and MGG whereas the biopsies were processed and stained using H & E. In result, neoplastic lesions (62.5%) were more common in presenting as suspected lung mass as compared to non-neoplastic lesion (22.5%). Squamous cell carcinoma came out to be the most common malignancy followed by adenocarcinoma. The results showed bronchial washing samples has a sensitivity of 40% (correctly diagnosing 16 cases) whereas this was 57.05% (correctly diagnosing 23 cases) for bronchial brushing samples. Thus, the present study, although deduced equivocal results of washing, still supports the cytological sampling should routinely recommended to be taken along with biopsy as these in combination increase the diagnostic yield of the procedure.