cytological diagnosis of cutaneous basal cell carcinoma

basal cell carcinoma (bcc) is the most common cancer of the skin. definite diagnosis usually requires histological examination but recently it has been suggested that cytological examination of skin smear can be used as an alternative. to evaluate sensitivity and specificity of cytological examination, a total of 125 skin lesions, clinically suspected to be bcc were studied. cytological samples were taken by scraping a scalpel blade over the lesion and smearing the cells on to a glass slide. the specimens were air- dried and stained with may-grünwald-giemsa. an incision biopsy was performed for histopathological study. the cytological results were compared with the histopathological results of the lesions. histopathology revealed bcc in 102 lesions (81.6%), squamous cell carcinoma (scc) in 11 lesions (8.8%), seborrheic keratosis in 6 lesions (4.8%), actinic keratosis in 5 lesions (4%) and keratoacanthoma in 1 lesion (0.8%). cytological examination reported bcc in 90(72%), scc in 13 ( 10.4%) and seborrheic keratosis in 6 lesions (4.8%) and was non-diagnostic in 16 lesions (12.8%). the sensitivity and specificity of the cytology in identifying all of the bcc types were 87.3% and 95.3%, respectively. in conclusion, cytological examination is easy to perform, saves time, requires a minimum of equipments and can be considered a reliable method in the diagnosis of suspected cutaneous bcc.