[The role of cytological studies in urology]

1100 patients with pathological findings of the prostate, urothelium and lymph-nodes underwent cytological examination with histological control. Prostatic cytology showed a sensitivity of 81% in detecting cancer. Through reassessment of originally false negative or only suspicious aspirates a specificity rate of 90% was achieved while the rate of unsatisfactory smears were doubled. In urothelial tumors evidence of lavage cytology was significantly higher than exfoliative cytology and depends on grading and staging of the tumor. Tumors with a low grade of malignancy were rarely detected cytologically. Topical chemotherapy seems to change the accuracy of cytological examinations because of the difficulty to separate malignancy associated cell changes from therapy induced cellular features. Transperitoneal aspiration cytology of retroperitoneal lymph-nodes has no evidence.