Saba K, Sajjad Y, Majeed T, Baloch BK.
Role of toluidine blue staining, to reduce the non-diagnostic reporting of fine needle aspiration cytology.
Biomedica Jan ;32(3):198-205.

Background and Objective: Fine needle aspiration cytology is becoming the essential domain of diagnostic modalities but its reliability depends upon its adequacy and quick reporting onsite. A cross sectional study was conducted to compare the FNAC smears adequacy by toluidine blue, a supravital stain (TBS) and Papanicolaou stain (PAPS). Materials and Methods: The accuracy of 2 stains werecompared to detect the adequacy of FNAC, smears of 200 aspirates, from different organs (TBS and PAPS). The values were calculated in percentages and 2x2 table calculated the accuracy of two methods. Results: The diagnostic adequacy was 100% of TABS as compared to 84% of PAPS. The accuracy of lymph nodes, salivary glands, breast and thyroid by TABS was same. Commonest pathology (66.3%) in lymph node swellings was caseating granulomas (57/86 cases) consistent with tuberculosis followed by reactive lymphadenitis (20/86 cases; 23.3%). Neoplastic lesions were less common comprising of lymphoreticular disorder 2/86 (2.3%), Hodgkin lymphoma (one case; 1.16%) and one case (1.16%) of nonHodgkin Lymphoma. The 25/37 (67.56%) breast lesions were benign as compared to 9/37 (24.32%) malignant cases while only 2/37(5.4%) cases, were suspicious. Benign thyroid lesions were more frequent comprising of 51 (72.27%) cases. One case (1.5%) of papillary carcinoma was found while 13/66 (19.7%) cases were follicular lesions. Regarding salivary gland lesions, there were 4 (36.4%) cases of pleomorphic adenoma and 3 (27.3%) cases of non-specific sialadenitis. There was one case (9%) of each of mucoepidermoid carcinoma, adenoidcystic carcinoma and benign cyst. Conclusion: TBS may be used onside reporting of FNAC smearsto improves the diagnostic accuracy.

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