Study of pleural fluid cytology in a tertiary care hospital

Introduction: Identification of malignant cells in any body fluid always poses a challenge for any cytopathologist. This often requires additional information like clinical history, morphological evaluation and sometimes modern techniques like cytochemistry and immunohistochemistry. This will help the clinician, surgeon and oncologist in treating the patient and it is the determining factor for treating patient. Materials and Methods: It is an observational, prospective study. The data was collected from the patients who were admitted in our hospital which is situated in Ahmedabad. Total 100 cases of pleural fluid cytology were studied over 2 years period and analysed. Result: We studied 100 cases of pleural effusion cytology and we found that out of 100 cases, 83 cases were of non malignant effusion and 17 cases were of malignant effusion. Conclusion: Definite diagnosis of pleural fluid effusion can be done by doing cytology in most of the cases, however in some cases adjuvant techniques such as cytochemistry, immunohistochemistry, ploidy and proliferation markers are found very handy. Pleural fluid cytology is the gold standard and still the first line of investigation in ruling out neoplastic lesions. It is also useful in sub typing of non neoplastic lesions and helps clinician in management of patients.