Abstract

The identification of histologic type of a non-small-cell lung cancer plays a pivotal role in prediction of prognosis and planning of appropriate therapy. In the light of this principal, we aimed to compare the preoperative clinical diagnosis obtained by using preoperative diagnostic (cytologic and/or histologic) interventions with final postoperative histologic types. Pre-operative and post-operative histologic diagnoses of lung tumors in one-hundred-sixty-two patients who admitted to Yedikule Chest Disease and Thoracic Surgery Hospital between 1994 and 2000 were retrospectively reviewed. Diagnostic specimens were obtained using bronchial lavage in 64 patients, bronchial biopsy in 81 patients, transbronchial needle aspiration (TBNA) in 31 patients and transthoracic needle aspiration (TTNA) in 52 patients. TBNA and bronchial biopsy have been found to be most successful methods which showed the strongest correlation (Kappa values are 0.90 and 0.84 respectively). This correlation was found to be more prominent comparing the other diagnostic methods. The weakest correlation was obtained by using TTNA (Kappa: 0.45). When evaluating all the diagnostic methods used in the study, the preoperative diagnostic types and postoperative final histologies was found to be correlated (Kappa:0.70). The correlations were found to be similar in patients with adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma (Kappa:0.76 and 0.71 respectively). Adenosquamous carcinoma and large-cell carcinoma showed the weakest correlation comparing preoperative and postoperative types.