The reliability and efficiency of the cytodiagnosis of fibrogastroendoscopic biopsy samles obtained under direct vision in 676 cases during a five-year period were reviewed. The critical evaluation showed a cytodiagnostic sensitivity of 93.54%, a specificity of 98.79%, a false-negative rate of 6.46%, a false-positive rate of 1.21%, a predictive value of a positive result of 98.01%, a predictive value of a negative result of 96.00%, a prevaleuce rate of 38.91%, an overall diagnostic accuracy of 96.75% and a chisquare value of 5.50(P<0.05). These results were comparable to those obtained by histologic study in the same cases; the