URINE CYTOLOGY OUTCOMES IN A TERTIARY HEALTH INSTITUTION IN NIGERIA

*Obiorah Christopher Chinedu (MBBS, FMCPath, FICS, FISN) and Ofuru Vitalis Obisike (MBBS, FMCS)

ABSTRACT

Background: There is paucity of information on the significance of urine cytology in the management of the concerned patients in African literature. Objectives: To review the diagnoses and ascertain the overall diagnostic yield of urine cytology in a Nigerian tertiary health care centre. Materials and methods: Information on: age, sex, clinical presentation, pathologic diagnoses, specialty of the referring doctor and type of specimen were sought from duplicate urine cytology reports and request forms in pathology laboratory. The cytologic diagnoses were classified into two categories - diagnostic and non-diagnostic depending on the usefulness of the diagnoses to the requesting clinician/surgeon. Diagnostic smears included: inflammatory, negative for malignancy, suspicious for malignancy and positive for malignancy while non-diagnostic included: acellular, hypocellular, haemorrhagic smears and those composed of cellular debris/degenerating cells. Data was analysed with SPSS version 20 and presented as tables and figures. Results: There were 96 cases, 57 males and 39 females of which 53.1% were diagnostic while 46.9% were non-diagnostic. Hematuria was the commonest indication for urine cytology request (54.2%) out of which, 59.7% were diagnostic. Lower urinary tract symptoms constituted 20.8% of the requests, with 50% diagnostic yield. Overall, benign diagnoses were most prevalent (62.7%), with inflammatory lesions constituting 84.4%. Malignant diagnoses and cases suspicious for malignancy constituted 9.8% and 27.5% respectively. Conclusion: These findings tally with previous research findings. The poor diagnostic yield which could partly be from the poor handling of specimen prior to submission needs to be improved upon by more advocacies on proper handling and preservation of urine specimen.

Keywords: urine, cytology, hemorrhagic, diagnostic, malignancy, smear.