Comparative Analysis Study of Efficacy of Papanicolaousmear&Leishman-Giemsa Cytological Technique in the Diagnosis of Oral Neoplastic Lesions

Introduction: Papanicolaou (Pap) is the most commonly used staining procedure in exfoliative cytology. It provides excellent results but is expensive and time consuming as it requires multistep procedure. Leishman-Gimesa (LG) stain, a relatively new staining technique, is cost effective, simple and less time consuming with good staining characteristics. Objectives: To compare the efficacy and reliability of Leishman-Gimesa stain over Papanicolaou stains in cytological diagnosis of oral lesions. Method: 109 clinically suspected cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma were enrolled into the study. In all patients, two smears were taken and stained with Papanicolaou and Leishman-Gimesa stains. The diagnostic efficacy of each stain was evaluated by comparing with the histopathological diagnosis. Results: Among 62 confirmed cases of squamous cell carcinoma, the number of cases diagnosed by Papanicolaou and Leishman-Gimesa stain was 56 and 57 respectively. The P value obtained for the confirmed cases of squamous cell carcinoma in comparison forLeishman-Gimesa vs. Papanicolaou was 0.11. Hence, no statistical significant difference was observed between the diagnostic ability of Papanicolaou and Leishman-Gimesa stains. Conclusion: Leishman-Gimesa stain is a simple, cheap and less time consuming alternative to Papanicolaou stain without compromising the quality of staining for diagnosis of oral malignancy.