Lymph node and lymphoid organs fine needle aspiration cytology: historical background

Lymph node has probably been the first target of Fine Needle Cytology (FNC) and among the latest to be accepted as an affordable diagnostic procedure. In 1912, dr. Hirschfeld performed FNC to diagnose cutaneous lymphomas and other tumours. Subsequently FNC was used to diagnose lymphoblastoma and splenic FNC to diagnose leishmaniasis on Romanowsky-stained smears. One of the first systematic study on lymph node FNC was then performed at John Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore (USA) using FNC and Romanowsky stain on air-dried smears. In the twenties, two independent groups from Memorial Hospital (New York, USA), worked on FNC of a large scale of different human pathologies. One of this study reported 1,405 diagnoses of cancer and other diseases by means of FNC, mainly performed on lymph nodes (662 cases). In the sixties, at the Karolinska Hospital (Stockholm, Sweden) a group of cytopathologists started a Cytopathology Service available to the whole Institution, which exploited all fields of FNC. Since then, the procedure spread all over the word and nowadays it is routinely used for the diagnosis of different organs and pathologies including lymph node. Distinguished cytopathologists have worked on lymph nodal FNC producing significant advances and highlighting advantages and inevitable limitations of the technique. Despite some persistent criticism, FNC is a generally accepted procedure in the first diagnosis of lymph nodes enlargement. Moreover, numerous studies have demonstrated that vital cells obtained by FNC are excellent samples suitable for molecular evaluation, offering new challenging application to lymph node FNC.