Cytology of bladder carcinoma

Urine cytology is a valuable adjunct but not a substitute for other urologic diagnostic procedures. Cytology offers particular advantage in the detection of pre-clinical cancer and the primary diagnosis of high grade carcinomas. The procedure is of limited value in the diagnosis of benign papilloma and low grade tumors. However, in such cases diagnostic accuracy could be improved by examining bladder irrigation samples, multiple samples, and basing the diagnosis of the identification of papillary clusters rather than individual cellular changes. To ensure comparability of reports in the future there is a great need to standarize several variables, that is the histopathologic classification of tumors, cytologic diagnostic criteria and reporting, as well as the methods adopted to measure validity.