biliary brushing

A cytology technique of waning popularity for diagnosing cancer of the biliary, in which a brush is introduced endoscopically and the cells obtained are assessed by light microscopy.

While biliary brushing has a high specificity (up to 100%), its specificity can also be as low as 30%; the false-negativity is due to sampling error, size and location of lesion, fibrosis, technical errors, interpretive difficulties related to specimen inadequacy, admixed benign elements, necrosis, lack of familiarity with dysplastic lesions, well-differentiated carcinoma and rare tumours. Liquid-based cytology is increasingly preferred.

References in periodicals archive

Other authors (9,10) have found that when only polysomic results were considered in biliary brushing or washing specimens, the specificity was 100%.

Trisomy has been correlated with malignancy in urine samples and biliary brushing or washing (BBW) specimens in some investigations.

These findings are similar to results described by other researchers on biliary brushings and washings associated with biliary strictures.

The utility of UroVysion fluorescence in situ hybridization in pancreatic fine-needle aspiration samples directed and obtained by endoscopic ultrasonography

Reclassification of "atypical" diagnoses in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreaticography-guided biliary brushings. Acta Cytol.

Factors Impacting the Performance Characteristics of Bile Duct Brushings: A Clinico-Cytopathologic Analysis of 253 Patients

No pancreatic lesions were observed, and biliary brushings were negative for malignancy.

Immunoglobulin G4 Sclerosing Cholangitis: An Unusual Cause of Obstructive Jaundice--Case Report and Literature Review

Arvanitakis and colleagues [41] showed that the diagnostic sensitivity for biliary strictures could be increased to 84% by combining biliary brushings with 2 OCT criteria which were a disorganized and subverted layer structure and large hypo- or nonreflective areas considered as tumor vessels.

Endoscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT): advances in gastrointestinal imaging

Because of the notoriously low sensitivity rate of biliary brushings in diagnosing malignancy (6%-64%), (112) numerous cytomorphologic features have been proposed to improve the test's performance.

The Evolving Role of Pathology in New Developments, Classification, Terminology, and Diagnosis of Pancreatobiliary Neoplasms