[A 5-year study of patients with neck lymphadenopathy]

The purpose of this study was to investigate neck lymphadenopathy patients in our hospital, and to investigate items requiring attention on the occasion of examination of these patients. In this study, 134 patients with neck lymphadenopathy in the five years from April 2005 to March 2010 were included. The kind of diseases, the period of suffering (the period from onset to consultation), relationship with pain, radiological examination, fine needle aspiration cytology and lymph node biopsy findings were examined. Of 134 patients, the disease was inflammatory in 109 patients (81.3%) and malignant in 25 patients (18.7%). The suffering period was longer in the malignant group than in the inflammatory group. Furthermore, the inflammatory group had more patients with neck lymph node pain than the malignant group, and the group with the short suffering period had more patients with neck lymph node pain than that with the long suffering period. Fine needle aspiration cytology was performed in 36 patients (26.9%), and finally, all of the seven patients with class III were diagnosed as having malignant disease. A neck lymph node biopsy was performed in 38 patients (28.4%), and four of 38 patients were diagnosed as having metastatic carcinoma. Two patients in the inflammatory group and two patients in the malignant group took more than 90 days to reach a definite diagnosis. Many kind of diseases cause neck lymphadenopathy, and, therefore, it is important to perform a neck lymph node biopsy immediately, if it is difficult to establish a diagnosis.