Fine-Needle Aspiration Biopsy of Patients with the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Experience in an Outpatient Clinic

doi:10.1059/0003-4819-108-1-42

Fine-Needle Aspiration Biopsy of Patients with the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Experience in an Outpatient Clinic

San Francisco, California

Abstract

One hundred twenty-one fine-needle aspiration biopsies of lymph nodes were done on 113 men followed in the AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) Outpatient Clinic of the San Francisco General Hospital. The cytologic diagnoses on these 121 biopsies included 60 (50%) hyperplasias, 24 (20%) non-Hodgkin lymphomas, 21 (17%) mycobacterial infections, 12 (10%) cases of Kaposi sarcoma, and 1 each of Hodgkin disease, giant cell carcinoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma. No false-positive results occurred in this series, but five false-negative results were seen in the 10 patients with hyperplasia on fine-needle aspiration biopsy specimens who subsequently had open surgical biopsy. From our experience, we believe fine-needle aspiration biopsy is a useful, cost-effective initial method to evaluate lymphadenopathy in patients seen at an AIDS outpatient clinic.

Article and Author Information

▸From the Departments of Anatomic Pathology and Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital; and the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine; San Francisco, California.
▸Requests for reprints should be addressed to Kent Bottles, M.D.; Department of Anatomic Pathology, HSW 501, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143.