Comparative Analysis Study of Efficacy of Papanicolaousmear Leishman-Giemsa Cytological Technique in the Diagnosis of Oral Neoplastic Lesions

Agrawal Apurva, Kumar Kaushal, Singh Hari Chandra, Agrawal Kailash Chandra

Abstract: Introduction Papanicolaou (Pap) is the most commonly used staining procedure in exfoliative cytology. It provides excellent results but is expensive and time consuming as it requires multistep procedure. Leishman-Gimesa (LG) stain, a relatively new staining technique, is cost effective, simple and less time consuming with good staining characteristics. Objectives To compare the efficacy and reliability of Leishman-Gimesa stain over Papanicolaou stains in cytological diagnosis of oral lesions. Method 109 clinically suspected cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma were enrolled into the study. In all patients, two smears were taken and stained with Papanicolaou and Leishman-Gimesa stains. The diagnostic efficacy of each stain was evaluated by comparing with the histopathological diagnosis. Results Among 62 confirmed cases of squamous cell carcinoma, the number of cases diagnosed by Papanicolaou and Leishman-Gimesa stain was 56 and 57 respectively. The P value obtained for the confirmed cases of squamous cell carcinoma in comparison forLeishman-Gimesa vs. Papanicolaou was 0.11. Hence, no statistical significant difference was observed between the diagnostic ability of Papanicolaou and Leishman-Gimesa stains. Conclusion Leishman-Gimesa stain is a simple, cheap and less time consuming alternative to Papanicolaou stain without compromising the quality of staining for diagnosis of oral malignancy.

Keywords: Exfoliative cytology, Leishman-Giemsa stain, Oral neoplastic lesions, Papanicolaou stain