Significance and role of different cytological sampling methods in diagnosis of lung cancer

DENG Chuting; LI Bingbing; ZHENG Yihong; HUANG Huichun; LIN Min; HUANG Jiabin

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1007-8096.2026.01.020

Abstract：Objective To compare and analyze the positive rates of single and combined detection methods in bronchofibroscopic brush smear,centrifugal smear of alveolar lavage fluid and liquid-based thin-layer cytology of bronchofibroscopic brush,and to explore the most effective cytological detection method for lung cancer screening.Methods The cytological examination results of 116 patients with lung cancer diagnosed by pathology were analyzed retrospectively,and the brush smears compared(n=109),the positive rates of single and combined detection in liquid-based thin-layer cytology(n=108)and lavage fluid smear(n=31)were statistically analyzed by chi-square test.Results Among 116 confirmed cases of lung cancer,brush,liquid-based thin-layer cytology(TCT),lavage fluid smear(BALF),brush+liquid-based thin-layer cytology,brush+lavage fluid smear(BALF)and liquid-based thin-layer cytology+lavage fluid smear(BALF)were analyzed;the positive rates of diagnosis were 70.6%,69.4%,29.0%,78.8%,66.7%and 66.7%,respectively.It was found that there was no significant difference in the positive rate between brush smear and liquid-based thin-layer chromatography(TCT)(70.6%vs.69.4%,P>0.05),but they were significantly higher than BALF of lavage fluid smear(29.0%,P<0.001).The positive rate of brush+TCT was the highest(78.8%),which was better than brush+BALF(66.7%)or TCT+BALF(66.7%)(χ2=27.996,P<0.001).Conclusion In the cytological screening of lung cancer,brushing and TCT alone have the same detection efficiency,and the combination of them can significantly improve the positive rate of cytological diagnosis of lung cancer,which is recommended as the preferred detection strategy in clinic.