Cytological diagnosis of lung cancer in Chiang Mai, Thailand: cyto-histological correlation and comparison of sensitivity of various methods.

To evaluate the role of cytology of sputum, bronchial brushing (BB), bronchial washing (BW), bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and fine needle aspiration cytology (FNA) in the diagnosis of lung cancer using histological material as a gold standard, a retrospective study was performed on cytological materials obtained from 243 patients with possible lung cancer. Of these, 160 had been confirmed histologically to have lung cancer. Cytological materials included in the study were 31 sputa, 123 BWs, 11 BBs and 36 BALs.