Exfoliative cytology for diagnosing basal cell carcinoma and | Figure 1
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Exfoliative cytology for diagnosing basal cell carcinoma and other skin cancers in adults
Cochrane Review; 9 studies contributing a total of 1655 lesions to our analysis, including 1120 basal cell carcinoma (BCCs; 14 datasets), 41 cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCCs) and 10 melanomas.
Objectives
To determine the diagnostic accuracy of exfoliative cytology for detecting basal cell carcinoma (BCC) in adults, and to compare its accuracy with that of standard diagnostic practice (visual inspection with or without dermoscopy).
Authors' conclusions
The utility of exfoliative cytology for the primary diagnosis of skin cancer is unknown, as all included studies focused on the use of this technique for confirming strongly suspected clinical diagnoses. For the confirmation of BCC in lesions with a high clinical suspicion, there is evidence of high sensitivity and specificity. Since decisions to treat low‐risk BCCs are unlikely in practice to require diagnostic confirmation given that clinical suspicion is already high, exfoliative cytology might be most useful for cases of BCC where the treatments being contemplated require a tissue diagnosis (e.g. radiotherapy). The small number of included studies, poor reporting and varying methodological quality prevent us from drawing strong conclusions to guide clinical practice.
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