Cancer is one of the most important problems in public health and its incidence has risen significantly worldwide. Accordingly, the incidence of oral cancer has also increased and 94% of the cases are caused by squamous cell carcinomas. The objective of the present study was to provide an update on the subject and report our five-year experience in the use of cytopathology analyzing suspected malignant oral lesions. We searched the slide archives of the anatomic pathology service of Hospital Universitário Antônio Pedro, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), from 2002 to 2007. We selected patients with suspected carcinoma oral lesions who underwent incisional biopsy and were scraped for cytopathological analysis simultaneously. The sample consisted of 50 cases, of which 41 (82%) were diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. Among these, cytopathology was conclusive in 30 cases (73%) and suspected alterations were described in 11 (27%). Results indicated that cytopathology presented diagnostic concordance with histopathology in positive diagnosis for squamous cell carcinoma and in negative for malignancy in 74% of the cases (gold standard). Our findings demonstrate that the standardization of techniques and the evaluation of a larger number of patients are required to define the accuracy of the method. In the studied sample cytopathology was a reliable method that may be used as a sufficient diagnostic tool to refer patients for immediate treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma.
Oral squamous cell carcinoma; Cytopathology; Diagnostic concordance
