[The clinical and pathological features of 85 cases with positive cerebrospinal fluid cytology by thin-layer centrifugal cytological test].

Objective: To evaluate cytological test of cerebrospinal fluid in the diagnosis of meningeal dissemination of tumor cells. Methods: The clinical and imaging features of 85 cases with tumor cells diagnosed by thin-layer centrifugal cytological test of cerebrospinal fluid were retrospectively reviewed. The characteristics of cellular morphology and immunocytochemical staining were analyzed. Results: The main presentations of all the patinets was meningeal irritation and neurological dysfunction. The features of the brain MRI were meningeal thicking and enhancement, intracranial abnormal signals and intracranial space occupying lesion in part of the patients. Atypical cells were found in 84 cases (98.8%) with the first sample test and immunocytochemical staining was conducted in 48 cases to identify the tissue origin. Meningeal carcinomatosis was shown to be the majority with lung cancer as the dominated tissue type and adenocarcinoma as the most common histological type. Others were lymphatic hematopoietic system (13 cases), melanomas(5 cases), primitive neuroectodermal tumor (3 cases) and glioma (1 case). In addition, 12 cases were only proved to be cancer by cytological test of cerebrospinal fluid. Conclusion: The thin-layer centrifugal cytological test of cerebrospinal fluid has a relatively high accuracy for detecting disseminated tumor cells of meninges and could be of great help to identify the source and type of lesion with immunocytochemical staining.