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Published on: August 19, 2014
Morphological Markers of Chromosomal Instability: A Useful Aid in Effusion Cytology
Archana Buch1, Mallika Agarwal1, Mangesh Londhe1
1Department of Pathology, Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Background:
Chromosomal instability (CI) is essential for carcinogenesis. Micronuclei (MN), nuclear budding (NB), chromatin bridge (CB), and multipolar mitosis (MPM) are the morphological markers of CI. These markers can be studied in the effusion fluids like pleural and ascitic fluid. This study aimed to analyze their significance in differentiating between benign and malignant pleural and ascitic effusion fluids.
Materials And Methods:
A prospective observational study was conducted on 100 pleural and ascitic effusion fluids, out of which 71 were benign and 29 were malignant. A total of 20 malignant cases were confirmed by cell block preparation and immunohistochemistry. Leishman-stained slides were screened under oil immersion (1000×) for MN, CB, NB, and MPM. The number of cells with each of these markers were counted per 1000 cells. The data were analyzed by calculating the mean, standard deviation (SD), and Student's t test. A P value was also computed.
Results:
Mean (SD) of MN, CB, NB, and MPM in malignant effusion cytology were 9.01 (4.65), 0.8846 (1.07), 0.96 (1.24), and 0.92 (0097) per 1000 cells counted, whereas, the mean for benign were1.0 (0.90), 0.39 (0.54), 0.51 (0.65), and 0.50(0.73) per 1000 cells, respectively. The difference between benign and malignant effusion cytology and MN score came out to be statistically significant with a P value of <0.0001.
Conclusion:
The markers of CI help to differentiate between malignant and benign effusion cytology in low-resource settings.
