A Combined Cyto- and Histopathological Diagnostic Approach Reduces Time to Diagnosis and Time to Therapy in First Manifestation of Metastatic Spinal Disease: A Cohort Study

This study investigates whether adding cytopathology (CP) to the standard histopathology (HP) during surgery for suspected spinal malignancies can speed up diagnosis and treatment. The results showed that using CP alongside HP significantly reduces both the time to diagnosis (TTD) and the time to the first tumor-specific therapy (TTT). Therefore, the study suggests that CP should be routinely used with HP when surgically managing suspected malignant spinal lesions.

• 1
  The mean time to diagnosis (TTD) with cytopathology (CP) was significantly shorter (1.7 days) compared to histopathology (HP) (8.4 days).
• 2
  The mean time to first tumor-specific therapy (TTT) was significantly shorter in the CP/HP group (21.0 days) compared to the HP group (28.6 days).
• 3
  In 24.1% of patients in the CP/HP group, specific therapy was initiated based on CP findings combined with imaging and biomarker results, before histopathology (HP) was completed.