A Cytohistopathological Correlation of Thyroid Lesions with Critical Evaluation Of Discordant Cases: An Experience At A Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC)  is important for pre-operative diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid lesions. It is usually the first line of investigation and a minimally invasive diagnostic procedure whose essential role is to diagnose and distinguish benign from malignant lesions. Thus the present study was undertaken to determine sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of  FNAC in the diagnosis of thyroid lesions and to correlate cytological findings with histopathology. Methods: A prospective study was conducted in a tertiary care centre to study FNAC of thyroid lesions along with its histopathological correlation over a period of 2 years starting from June 2013 to June 2015 Result: 56(93%) patients were females and 4(7%) patients were males. Patients age ranged from 15 to 65 years .Commonest lesion encountered in thyroid gland was colloid goitre, while papillary carcinoma was the most frequent malignant lesion. Cyto-histopathological correlation of 60 cases was done. Sensitivity ,specificity and diagnostic accuracy of the study for malignant lesions was 96.36%,100%,and 96.66% respectively. Conclusion: FNAC is a safe, simple, highly accurate, economical method for evaluation of palpable thyroid lesions. There is almost perfect cyto-histopathological concordance and the results are consistent with those available in the literature. FNAC helps in avoiding unnecessary surgeries in patients diagnosed to have a benign pathology based on cytology. Thus FNAC serves as a useful screening test to triage thyroid lesions before surgery. DOI: 10.21276/APALM.1154