Cytodiagnosis of soft tissue tumors

The only acceptable definitive diagnosis of a soft tissue mass is histologic or cytologic examination. In recent years, fine-needle aspiration cytology is used in more and more centers for diagnosis of soft tissue masses. We studied 196 aspiration cytologies performed on soft tissue lesions. Out of these, in 48 cases a definitive surgical procedure or open biopsy for histology and further evaluation were performed. There were 25 sarcomas and 23 benign tumors. There was one false negative cytologic result in this group; no false positive cytologies were detected. It seems that cytodiagnosis of soft tissue masses performed by an experienced pathologist is the method of choice, permitting a good diagnostic evaluation, with almost none of the traumatic and oncologic disadvantages of the other methods of biopsy.