Acomparative Study of Three Urine Fixation Methods Applied To the Assessment of The Effect of Smoking

Abstract

This is analytical case-control study carried out in Khartoum state during the period from December 2009 to March 2010, the study aimed at determing the best fixative agent for the urine samples. Specimens were taken from cigarettes smokers for identification of cellular changes by using Papanicolaou method. Three hundred urine smears were collected randomly from men. Of whom150 were continually exposed to cigarette smoking for more than 10 years and 10 cigarettes per day, and the remaining 150 were taken from apparently healthy individuals (non tobacco users). The cytological assessment among study group revealed the following findings: fixation with 95% ethyl alcohol found that, the mean of nucleus stain was 3.4800 and 3.6333 for cytoplasm stain. In cytoRich fixative the mean of nucleus stain was 5.9433 and for cytoplasm stain was 5.9533. Esposti's fixative was the higher value for mean with 6.4433 for nucleus stain and 6.4067 for cytoplasm stain. In regard to the cytological changes, acute inflammatory changes were detected in (38) of smokers, and (6) of non- tobacco users, and this was found to be statistically highly significant (P. <0.0001). In conclusion of this study, the Esposti's fixative is a good fixative and cytoRich fixative was moderate fixative and 95% ethyl alcohol was poor fixative for the urine cells. Also the study found relation between smoking and acute inflammatory cells in urine.