부산대학교 도서관

Simple Summary: Symptomatic spinal lesions often indicate the presence of advanced malignant tumors. Alongside a surgical intervention for spinal treatment, it is imperative to confirm the diagnosis to devise further therapy strategies. Unfortunately, confirming the diagnosis through histopathology (HP) can take up to 14 days. However, cytopathology (CP) can offer an initial assessment within a few days. This study examines the impact of a simultaneous CP analysis alongside HP during spinal surgery on the time to diagnosis (TTD) and the time to the first tumor-specific therapy (TTT) in patients undergoing spinal surgery for suspected spinal malignancies. The findings demonstrate that concurrent CP significantly reduces both the TTD and TTT. Hence, it is recommended to incorporate CP alongside HP as a standard procedure in the surgical management of suspected malignant spinal lesions. Malignant spinal lesions (MSLs) are frequently the first manifestation of malignant disease. Spinal care, diagnostic evaluation, and the initiation of systemic therapy are crucial for outcomes in patients (pts) with advanced cancer. However, histopathology (HP) may be time consuming. The additional evaluation of spinal lesions using cytopathology (CP) has the potential to reduce the time to diagnosis (TTD) and time to therapy (TTT). CP and HP specimens from spinal lesions were evaluated in parallel in 61 pts (CP/HP group). Furthermore, 139 pts in whom only HP was performed were analyzed (HP group). We analyzed the TTD of CP and HP within the CP/HP group. Furthermore, we compared the TTD and TTT between the groups. The mean TTD in CP was 1.7 ± 1.7 days (d) and 8.4 ± 3.6 d in HP (p < 0.001). In 13 pts in the CP/HP group (24.1%), specific therapy was initiated based on the CP findings in combination with imaging and biomarker results before completion of HP. The mean TTT in the CP/HP group was 21.0 ± 15.8 d and was significantly shorter compared to the HP group (28.6 ± 23.3 d) (p = 0.034). Concurrent CP for MSLs significantly reduces the TTD and TTT. As a result, incorporating concurrent CP for analyzing spinal lesions suspected of malignancy might have the potential to enhance pts' quality of life and prognosis in advanced cancer. Therefore, we recommend implementing CP as a standard procedure for the evaluation of MSLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]