Is urine cytology still a valuable test in detecting bladder cancer: A Retrospective Study

Objectives: Urinary cytology has been considered the gold standard in bladder cancer screening 1 . Recent advances in diagnostic methods are challenging its usefulness. This study compared urinary cytology with pathologic findings of proven bladder cancer patients to determine the value of voiding urinary cytology.Methods: Retrospective analysis of voiding urinary cytology results and histopathology reports was carried out in 169 proven bladder cancer patients. Urine specimens were centrifuged and stained with Papanicolaou stain.Results: Overall, Urine cytology results were positive for cancer cells in 87(51%), suspicious in 17(10%), atypical in 8(4.7%) and negative in 57(34%) patients. High grade tumours (G3: 82.5%)) were more likely to have positive malignant cytology than lower grade tumours (G1:13%). Higher staging (pT2:72%) was positively associated with malignant cytology than lower staging (pTa: 19%). Conclusions: Exfoliate Cytology is still a valuable test in detecting bladder cancer. Patients with positive urine cytology are more likely to have higher stage and grade disease. Hence, investigations in these patients need to be more exhaustive. Despite new diagnostic methods ,urine cytology still has a role to play in the detection of more advanced and higher grade urothelial cancers, early detection of which is likely to affect long-term prognosis.