Thyroid Lesions: FNAC and Histopathology Correlation in Our Experience.

ABSTRACT

Background: Fine needle aspiration cytology is considered the gold standard diagnostic test for the diagnosis of thyroid nodules. Fine needle aspiration cytology is a cost effective procedure that provides a specific diagnosis rapidly with minimal complications. Based on the cytology findings, patients can be followed up in cases of benign diagnosis and subjected to surgery in cases of malignant diagnosis thereby decreasing the rate of unnecessary surgery. The purpose of the present study was to correlate the fine needle aspiration cytology findings with histopathology of excised specimens. Methods: This was a prospective study conducted on 310 consecutive patients between June 2012 and May 2015. All patients with clinically diagnosed thyroid nodule were included in the study. Results: In our study sensitivity of the thyroid FNAC ranges from 93.02% to 100% and its specificity from 60.42% to 96.62% respectively. Positive predictive value is 94.44% and negative predictive value is 100%. Commonest benign condition is multinodular goiter and malignancy is papillary carcinoma. Most difficult thyroid lesions to be reported are those in the intermediate category as cytomorphological features are overlapping.Conclusion: Fine needle aspiration cytology is a simple, easy to perform, cost effective, and easily repeated procedure for the diagnosis of thyroid cancer. It is recommended as the first line investigation for the diagnosis of thyroid nodules.