Diagnostic impact of safety protocols for processing peritoneal washing specimens during global pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 : a comparative study from 195 cytological samples

Santoro, Angela; Angelico, Giuseppe; Mastrosimini, Maria Gaia; Inzani, Frediano; Cianfrini, Federica; Straccia, Patrizia; Arciuolo, Damiano; D'Alessandris, Nicoletta; Scaglione, Giulia; Spadola, Saveria; Rossi, Esther Diana; Zannoni, Gian Franco

BACKGROUND: Global pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 represented a major concern for the health services worldwide, also determining major changes in cytopathology practice. AIM: We aimed to establish the diagnostic performance of cytologic evaluation with the new safety protocol to process cytological samples compared to the standard one. We also aimed to assess how cytological diagnoses and sampling were impacted during the pandemic period compared to the pandemic‐free period in 2019. MATERIALS & METHODS: Peritoneal washings cytology samples received during COVID‐19 emergency in Italy (March 11, 2020 – January 11, 2021) were compared to the samples received during the same time frame in year 2019. RESULTS: 195 specimens were analyzed in the present study. We did not observe noticeable differences in cytological diagnoses during the pandemic period compared to the pre‐pandemic period in 2019. In fact, during pandemic and pre‐pandemic periods, we observed respectively 0 vs 0 non‐diagnostic (ND), 1 vs 7 atypia of uncertain significance (AUS), 3 vs 0 suspicious (SFM) diagnoses, 52 vs 86 negative for malignancy (NFM) and 4 vs 42 malignancies (MAL). CONCLUSION: A consistent reduction in number of cytological samples has been observed during the COVID‐19 period. Finally, our institutional safety protocol for processing cytological samples did not affect the diagnostic reliability of peritoneal washing samples.