[Which technique should be used in the phenotyping of lymphocytic alveolitis: Immunocytochemistry or flow cytometry].

BACKGROUND: Diffuse interstitial pneumonias are considered as a group of multiple affections characterized by challenging diagnoses because of the lack of specific clinical signs. Radiologic investigations highlight the diagnoses in most of the cases but bronchoalveolar lavage plays a key role in the diagnostic diagram. We aim to compare the immunocytochemical technique and the flow cytometry in the phenotyping of lymphocytic alveolitis.

METHODS: We described a series of 32 lymphocytic alveolitis, which were analyzed using immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry.

RESULTS: We found a good reproducibility between the immunocytochemistry performed on smears and cytoblocks (kappa=0.7) and a poor reproducibility between immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry (kappa=0.35).

CONCLUSION: Our study emphasized on the poor reproducibility between immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry. Further studies about the reliability of both techniques are needed especially in discordant cases.