Cytological Changes Detected in Urine among Patients of Pelvic Malignancies Receiving Radiotherapy

Abstract

This is a case control study was carried out at Radiotherapy Isotopes Center of Khartoum “RICK” during the period from November 2008 to March 2009. The main aim of this study was to assess the cytomorphologicals change in urine in patients receiving radiotherapy and to correlate these changes with the dosage of radiotherapy. Specimens of urine were collected from 120 individuals, of whom 60 patients had pelvic neoplasms receiving radiotherapy as study group, and 60 full voided urine samples were collected from healthy individuals as control group. Voided urine specimens were collected and processed by the conventional method for urine cytology and stained by Papanicolaou staining method and examined microscopically. Cytological atypias in form of cellular enlargement and nuclear enlargement were detected in 9 (15 %) individuals and in form of multinucleated cells in 4 (7%) of individuals in the study group. Whereas, no evidence of cytological atypias was detected among control group. These findings strongly prove the role of radiotherapy as a risk factor for developing cytological atypias and these were found to be statistically significant (P<0.05). Inflammatory cells were seen in 43 (71%) of cases and 8 (13.3%) of controls, and haematouria was seen in 14 (23.3%) of cases and in 2 (3.3%) of controls. These indicate that radiotherapy is major factor for the presence of the inflammatory cells (P<0.05) and haematouria (P<0.05). In conclusion, radiotherapy can cause cytological atypia, haematouria and can induce the presence of inflammatory cells in urine cytology. Urine cytology is a simple and convenient method in the diagnosis and assessment of pathological conditions of the urinary system. In view of these, we highly recommend the introduction of urine cytology techniques in screening and assessment of individuals who are at risk of developing bladder cancer.