Estudo do linfonodo cervical pela citologia do imprint

Introduction: The cytologic study of the lymph node by the imprint method is important as a complementary tool to the histopathologic examination, being more accurate than that obtained by the fine needle aspiration biopsy. method: A consecutive series of 86 patients who underwent excision of cervical lymph nodes with imprint preparation were retrospectively reviewed. Final diagnoses were determined by the histologic examination from excision biopsy. Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values and accuracy were evaluated. Results: There were the final diagnosis of 54 cases of malignancy, 8 cases of tuberculosis and 24 cases of nonspecific reactive hyperplasia. The sensitivity, specificity, negative and positive predictive values and accuracy of the imprint were 93.5%, 100%, 85.7%, 100% and 95.3%, respectively. Conclusion: The positive imprint was always coherent with the final histologic diagnosis, whereas regarding the negative findings, there was disagreement in 33% of the non-Hodgkin lymphomas cases and 25% of the ganglionar tuberculosis cases. The imprint can be done due to its high accuracy. However it is considered an auxiliary method to the histopathologic evaluation, which is the gold standard.