The Sydney system for lymph node FNA biopsy cytopathology: A detailed analysis of recent publications and meta‐analysis and a proposal for the components of an ideal prospective study of a cytopathology reporting system

Abstract

Background

The Sydney system for fine‐needle aspiration biopsy of lymph nodes has five categories, stressing the role of correlation of cytopathology with clinical, ultrasound, and ancillary findings to achieve diagnosis. The five categories constitute a hierarchical system with increasing risk of malignancy from benign to atypical, suspicious, and malignant categories, which informs recommendations for further workup to achieve a final diagnosis as possible. This article analyzes 10 publications using the Sydney system and a meta‐analysis of nine of these studies. The primary goal of the analysis is to ascertain the causes of the large ranges in risk of malignancy for the “atypical” and “inadequate” compared to “benign,” “suspicious,” and “malignant” categories, which were comparable to well‐established reporting systems. Research protocols are proposed to improve future studies.

Methods

PubMed literature search from January 2021 to December 2023 identified studies evaluating performance of the Sydney system.

Results

Ten studies showed heterogeneity with clinical setting, study design, ultrasound use and rapid on‐site evaluation, operator, cutoff points for “positive” cases, with inherent partial verification biases, resulting in a wide range of risk of malignancy, specificity, and sensitivity values.

Conclusion

Analysis shows the large range is due to heterogeneity of the studies, which suffer from biases and variable statistical analysis that are ultimately included in any meta‐analysis, detracting from the usefulness of the risk of malignancy derived by the meta‐analysis. Components for ideal analyses of reporting systems are presented.

Abstract

The Sydney system for lymph node cytopathology shows variable risk of malignancy with commendable specificity whereas its sensitivity is relatively moderate. There is a marked heterogeneity among the published studies on this topic that raises concerns about the generalizability of the findings in a recent meta‐analysis of the Sydney system. The authors propose a framework of what data should be included in an ideal analysis of the Sydney system, which may be used in a review of any other reporting system.