[Prospective study of digestive tumor detection by endoscopy: a comparison of brush cytology and histology]

The diagnostic accuracy of endoscopic appearance, histology and brush cytology has been compared in a prospective study of 192 cases involving esogastric lesions. Macroscopic diagnosis of malignancy was more frequent in benign lesions (23/145) than in true malignancies (21/42). Histology was positive in 29/36 tumors and cytology in 23/36. In cytology there were no false negatives in esophageal tumors, but there were 52% false negatives in gastric tumors and 66% in carcinoma in situ. The combination of the 2 methods resulted in a correct diagnosis in 86% of the tumors in this study.