Application of liquid-based cytology test of bronchial lavage fluid in lung cancer diagnosis

The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic significance of the liquid-based cytologic test (LCT) and conventional smear (CS) in bronchial lavage fluid (BLF) in lung cancer patients, as well as the evaluation of LCT applications in BLF for different types of lung cancer. A total of 210 patients were divided into two groups of LCT and CS. The positive rates of the two groups were compared by stratified analysis of different bronchoscopic appearances. The positive rate of LCT and CS groups was 35.84% and 11.835%, respectively, which indicated a statistical significance between the two groups (P < 0.001). Furthermore, the detection rate of squamous carcinoma in the LCT group was (72.7%), which was higher than that of the CS group (41.7%) (P = 0.041). However, there was no difference between the biopsy and biopsy combined with LCT groups (P = 0.417), in terms of direct bronchoscopic appearance. We concluded that LCT was superior to CS in BLF that was acquired by bronchoscopy from lung cancer patients. Moreover, LCT was better than CS in diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma. LCT could be used as an important complement of bronchoscope biopsy and could have the potential to be widely applied.