Nuclear Morphometry of Lung Squamous Cell Carcinomas in Cytologic Study

The nuclei of most cancer cells in histopathologic preparations differ from normal nuclei and vary individually in size, shape, and chromatin pattern. Although the cytologic characteristics of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lung have been described, quantification of the cytologic features has not been established.

Cytologic investigations were performed on bronchial brushings or washings, or fine-needle aspirates. We analyzed the nuclear area (NA) of 50 tumor cells in 32 patients with SCC of the lung and 50 bronchial epithelial cells in 20 patients with no evidence of malignancy including inflammatory lesions.

The NA of tumor cells (102.4 ± 26.2 μm²) was significantly larger than that of bronchial epithelial cells (64.1 ± 16.9 μm²) (P = 0.001). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that an NA cutoff level of 86 μm² had a sensitivity of 75% and specificity of 88% to detect malignant components.

We conducted quantitative analyses of NA in SCC using cytologic specimen, NA was a useful parameter for evaluation of differential diagnosis between SCC and non-malignancies even in cytologic specimens.