Role of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology in Diagnosis of Thyroid lesion: a retrospective study

Abstract

Aim: to evaluate the role of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology in Diagnosis of Thyroid lesion.

Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was carried out in the Department of Pathology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital Bhagalpur, Bihar, India from july  2018 to july 2019. Total 200 patients’ of solitary thyroid nodule fulfilling inclusion criteria were included in the study. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were calculated for fine needle aspiration cytology taking histopathologic examination as gold standard. Results: There were 120 females and 80 males, with female: male ratio of 1.5: 1. The age of the patients was ranged from 14-71 years with mean age of 43.69+S.D 12.49 years. Most of the patients belong to 30-40 years. The main complaints of these patients were neck swelling (100%), vocal cord palsy 15(7.5%), breathing difficulty 11(5.5%) and Dysphagia 9(4.5).  The size of the thyroid nodule ranged from 2 - 6.9 cm with mean 4.51 +/- S.D 1.89 cm. In this study FNAC of solitary thyroid nodule  revealed  that  104  cases   (52%) were nodular goitre, 32 cases (16%) benign cyst among benign lesions while 33 cases (16.5%) were follicular carcinoma, 17 cases (8.5) papillary carcinoma and 3 cases were  suspicious  of  neoplasm. Conclusion: FNAC has key rule in diagnosis of solitary thyroid nodule because it is safe, minimally invasive and cost effective diagnostic tool.

Keywords: Fine needle aspiration cytology, Histopathology, Solitary thyroid nodule