Cytologic Diagnosis of Bronchogenic Carcinoma

¹ Division of Surgical Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

Our experience with cytologic diagnosis of bronchogenic carcinoma has been summarized. To date in more than 400 cases of bronchogenic carcinoma the diagnosis has been made cytologically with a false positive error of approximately 2 per cent. In our experience the false negative error has been approximately 30 per cent. Of 80 consecutive surgically removed bronchogenic carcinomas, 10 per cent were peripherally placed showing slight or no gross communication with the bronchial tree. Cytologic examination in the case of these peripherally located tumors gave negative results. Cytologic studies are of value in the diagnosis of alveolarcell tumor but of no value in bronchial adenoma or cylindroma.