ABSTRACT
Intraoperative pleural lavage cytology is a diagnostic technique used to detect tumor cells and serve as a prognostic parameter for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. In the past several decades, many scholars have been dedicated to clarifying the relationships between positive intraoperative pleural lavage cytology results and postoperative survival as well as tumor recurrence and metastasis. However, the findings remained various due to the inhomogeneity of different research. It has been confirmed that a positive intraoperative pleural lavage cytology result is one of the risk factors for the prognosis of postoperative patients. This study reviewed the advances in research of intraoperative pleural lavage cytology in recent years from several aspects, including clinical significance, influencing factors and possible mechanisms. .