ABSTRACT
The study was carried out from May 1990 to November 1995 in the departments of surgery and pathology of a teaching hospital. The role of thyroid radioisotope scan and fine needle aspiration and cytology [FNAC] was studied in 172 patients with clinically solitary thyroid nodule [STN], all of whom underwent surgery. These patients were divided into two groups, Group A [72 patients] which underwent thyroid scan without FNAC and Group B[100 patients] which was subjected to both. Thyroid scan turned out to be dispensable except in hyperthyroidism where it had 100% sensitivity, specificity and accuracy in diagnosing hyperfunctioning thyroid adenoma. FNAC reaffirmed its superior value by low false negative [1.4%], high specificity [97.5%] and accuracy [96.5%]. FNAC however is liable to be overruled by clinical data especially when dealing with the cytologically "indeterminate" subgroup