value of cytological study of gastric juice in diagnosis of lower esophageal and gastroduodenal lesions

Recently cytological diagnosis of gastric aspirate has emerged as a definitive diagnostic modality in diagnosis of different gastric lesions. This study included 50 patients with different lower esophageal and gastroduodenal lesions, 38 [76 percent] patients were males and 12 patients [24 percent] were females as well as 10 healthy individuals as a control group. Preoperatively an over night fasting gastric wash was done and the aspirate centrifuged and stained by papanocula stain for cytological study for every patient and form the control group. Difinitive medical and surgical treatment was done and pathological examination of the biopsies taken either by endoscopy or during operation. A correlation between the preoperative cyto diagnosis, radiological, endoscopic diagnosis and post-operative pathological examination was done and statistically analyzed. This study revealed that cytological study was sensitive and true positive in diagnosis of 90 percent of patients of gastric cancer, in 82 percent of patients with peptic ulcer and in 77.8 percent of patients with other benin gastroduodenal lesions. The test was also, highly significant in excluding malignancy from both the control group and from the other benign gastroduodenal lesions and the specificity was 90 percent