The World Health Organization Reporting System for Lung Cytopathology

The International Academy of Cytology has joined with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to bring together a group of experts in lung cytopathology to develop a WHO Reporting System for Lung Cytopathology (WHO System). This WHO System defines five categories for reporting lung cytopathology, that is, “Insufficient”/“Inadequate”/“Non-diagnostic,” “Benign,” “Atypical,” “Suspicious for malignancy,” and “Malignant,” each with a clear descriptive term for the category, a definition, a risk of malignancy and a suggested management algorithm. The key diagnostic cytopathology features of each of the lesions within each category have been established by consensus and will be presented more fully in a subsequent IARC e-book and published hard cover book.The WHO System provides the best practice application of ancillary testing, including immunocytochemistry and molecular pathology, and provides a review to guide sampling and processing techniques to optimize the handling and preparation of the cytopathology sample emphasizing the cytomorphological differential diagnosis to aid low-resourced settings. The authors recognize that local medical and pathology resources w ill vary, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and have developed the WHO System to make it applicable worldwide based on cytomorphology with options for further diagnostic management of the patient.The online WHO System provides a direct link to the WHO Tumour Cl...
Source: Acta Cytologica - Category: Cytology Source Type: research