US-Guided Fine-Needle Aspiration Cytology of Para-Aortic Lymph Nods Metastasis in Uterine Cervical Cancer: Accuracy and Impact on Clinical Decision Making

Abstract Objective: To investigate whether ultrasound guided fine-needle aspiration cytology(US-FNAC) is an effective technique for diagnosing para-aortic lymph nodes(PALNs) metastasis in uterine cervical cancer and access the impact on clinical therapeutic decision. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the clinical data of 92 patients with PALN enlargement in cervical cancer between 2010 and 2018. The US-FNAC cytological results were classified by the same experienced cellular pathologists. The diagnostic indicators were calculated according to biopsy , imaging and clinical follow-up results. Univariate and multivariate analysis was used to analyze the differences of influencing factors. The effect of US-FNAC on clinical decision making was evaluated. Results: The results of cytological diagnosis by US-FNAC were categorized as malignancy(n=62;67.4%), suspicious malignancy(n=11;12.0%), undetermined(n=5;5.4%), benign (n=10;10.9%), and inadequacy(n=4;4.3%). The satisfactory biopsy samples were obtained from 95.7% of PLANs (88/92). The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy of FNAC in distinguishing benign from malignant were 90.1%(95%CI:0.809-0.953), 100%(95%CI:0.561-1), 100%(95%CI:0.938-1), 46.7%(95%CI:0.223-0.726) and 90.9%(95%CI:0.848-0.970) respectively. Univariate analysis indicated that experience of the puncture physicians(radiologists) was significant differences between the correct diagnosis group and wrong diagnosis group (P<0.05); the experience was confirmed as independent predictor of diagnostic accuracy by multivariate analysis (p=0.031,OR=0.077,95%CI:0.354-0.919). All patients tolerated the US-FNAC procedure well and only nine patients presented slight abdominal discomfort. Through US-FNAC technique, the therapeutic methods of 74 patients (80.4%) were subjected to affect.Conclusions: US-FNAC is a relatively safe and effective examination technique for enlarged para-aortic lymph nodes, which can be considered as a routine examination before treatment of cervical cancer to guide clinical decision-making.