Background: The present study was done to evaluate the status of intraoperative cytology as a diagnostic and supportive investigation for ovarian tumours.Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted in the Department of Pathology, Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India during a time span of 13 months (June 2011 to June 2012). A prospective investigation was performed on 50 cases of suspected ovarian neoplasms. Imprint smears were made intraoperatively from fresh samples from various representative areas, and they were immediately fixed in 95% ethyl alcohol and stained with the haematoxylin and eosin stain. The results were compared with the final histopathological diagnoses in each case.Results: There were 20 benign lesions, 4 borderline epithelial neoplasms and 26 malignant tumours according to the final histopathological diagnosis. The overall diagnostic accuracy of imprint cytology has been satisfactory, with those of 90% of the cases correlating with the final diagnoses. Characteristic cytological patterns were noted in various surface epithelial, sex cord stromal and germ cell tumours.Conclusion: Imprint cytology can be used as an adjunct to histopathology for a rapid and an early diagnosis in the operation theatre, particularly in developing countries like ours, where the facility of frozen sections is often not available, since a rapid preliminary diagnosis may help in the surgical management planning.
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