Categorisation of peritoneal serous effusions using the International System for Reporting Serous Fluid...

Cytology of serous effusions is an indispensable diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of non-neoplastic as well as neoplastic effusions, aiding in the categorisation, staging, and prognostication of the patient. This study focuses on reclassifying cases of peritoneal fluid cytology following the International System for Reporting Serous Fluid Cytopathology (TIS), highlighting various challenges encountered and adding to the body of data regarding the risk of malignancy (ROM), focussing on peritoneal effusions due to gynaecological causes.

Peritoneal effusion samples were retrieved from our department's archives and reclassified according to the TIS. The ROM for each category was calculated based on available surgical follow-up.

A total of 818 peritoneal effusions were studied. Following the definitions and guidelines of the TIS, the cases were reclassified with 125 (15.2%) in the category of non-diagnostic (ND), 595 (72.7%) as negative for malignancy (NFM), 26 (3.2%) as atypia of undetermined significance (AUS), 12 (1.5%) as suspicious for malignancy (SFM), and 60 (7.3%) as malignant (MAL). The respective ROM values for each category were 16.9%, 12.1%, 50%, 80%, and 100%, respectively. By considering the MAL and SFM groups as positive, and the ND, NFM, and AUS groups as negative, the diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were determined as 85.2%, 36.7%, 99.1%, 91.7%, and 84.5%, respectively.

Peritoneal cytology categorisation following the proposed TIS offered a practical approach for categorisation of the fluids received. The ROMs reported in our study were mostly concordant with those published according to the TIS.