Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
How well lymph node cytopathology diagnoses lymphoma in dogs
By Martini, Valeria et al.·Published in Journal of veterinary internal medicine·2022·Department of Veterinary Medicine, Italy·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Performance of lymph node cytopathology in diagnosis and characterization of lymphoma in dogs.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of 139 dogs with swollen lymph nodes underwent a test called cytopathology to help diagnose lymphoma, a type of cancer. The results showed that cytopathology was quite accurate in identifying lymphoma, with over 80% accuracy overall, but it struggled more with determining the specific type of lymphoma. While this test can be a helpful first step in diagnosing lymphoma, veterinarians recommend confirming the results with additional tests for a more complete picture. Many dogs were able to receive timely treatment based on these findings.
People also search for: dog swollen lymph nodes lymphoma diagnosis · cytopathology in dogs · dog cancer diagnosis tests
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cytopathology is a minimally invasive and convenient diagnostic procedure, often used as a substitute for histopathology to diagnose and characterize lymphoma in dogs. OBJECTIVES: Assess the diagnostic performance of cytopathology in diagnosing lymphoma and its histopathological subtypes in dogs. ANIMALS: One-hundred and sixty-one lymph node samples from 139 dogs with enlarged peripheral lymph nodes. METHODS: Based only on cytopathology, 6 examiners independently provided the following interpretations on each sample: (a) lymphoma vs nonlymphoma; (b) grade and phenotype; and (c) World Health Organization (WHO) histopathological subtype. Histopathology and immunohistochemistry (IHC) findings were used as reference standards to evaluate diagnostic performance of cytopathology. Clinical, clinicopathologic, and imaging data also were considered in the definitive diagnosis. RESULTS: Classification accuracy for lymphoma consistently was >80% for all examiners, whereas it was >60% for low grade T-cell lymphomas, >30% for high grade B-cell lymphomas, >20% for high grade T-cell lymphomas, and <40% for low grade B-cell lymphomas. Interobserver agreement evaluated by kappa scores was 0.55 and 0.32 for identification of lymphoma cases, and of grade plus immunophenotype, respectively. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Cytopathology may result in accurate diagnosis of lymphoma, but accuracy decreases when further characterization is needed. Cytopathology represents a fundamental aid in identifying lymphoma and can be used as a screening test to predict grade and phenotype. However, these results must be confirmed using other ancillary techniques, including flow cytometry, histopathology, and immunohistochemistry (IHC).
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34837263/