Prognostic implications of cytopathologic classification of melanocytic uveal tumors evaluated by fine-needle aspiration biopsy

• Autor(a) principal: Augsburger,James Jay
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Corrêa,Zélia Maria, Trichopoulos,Nikolaos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Arquivos brasileiros de oftalmologia (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-27492013000200004
• topic: Choroid neoplasms; Melanoma/diagnosis; Cytodiagnosis; Melanoma/surgery; Biopsy needle/methods; Biopsy, fine-needle; Uveal neoplasms/pathology

PURPOSE: Determine whether cytopathologic classification of melanocytic uveal tumors evaluated by fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is a significant prognostic factor for death from metastasis. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of cases of clinically diagnosed uveal melanoma evaluated by fine-needle aspiration biopsy from 1980 to 2006. Main outcome evaluated was death from metastasis. Associations between baseline clinical variables and cytopathologic classification were evaluated using cross-tabulation. Prognostic significance of cytopathologic classification was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards analysis. RESULTS: Of 302 studied biopsies, 260 (86.1%) yielded sufficient cells for cytopathologic classification. Eighty of the 260 patients who had a sufficient specimen have already died (P=0.021), 69 from metastatic uveal melanoma. Cell type assigned by cytopathology was strongly associated with metastasis/metastatic death in this series (P=0.0048). Multivariate analysis showed cytopathologic classification to be an independently significant prognostic factor for metastatic death (P=0.0006). None of the 42 patients whose tumor yielded insufficient aspirates (sampled in at least two sites) have developed metastasis or died of metastasis thus far. CONCLUSION: In this series, cytopathology of fine-needle aspiration biopsy samples obtained from uveal melanomas was strongly prognostic of death from metastasis. Insufficiently aspirates (2 or more sites sampled) proved to be prognostic of a favorable outcome (i.e., not developing metastasis).