Role of Fine needle aspiration cytology in Head and neck lesions

Introduction The common head and neck lesions encountered in routine daily practice are from lymph nodes, salivary glands, soft tissue tumors, and thyroid. The beginning inexpensive diagnostic procedure that the clinician can think is the Fine needle aspiration cytology (Fnac). It is simple, easy and diagnosis can be obtained in few hours. Materials and Method: Our study is a prospective study which included Fnac technique on 50 cases of head and neck lesions. From lymph nodes, soft tissues, salivary gland. However thyroid lesions were excluded from the study. The study was done for 1 year from 2016 January to 2016 December in Adichunchanagiri Institute of Medical Sciences, Pathology department. Results: Reactive/ non-specific lymphadenitis was the common diagnosis obtained in 19 cases. Followed by metastatic deposits in the lymph nodes in 16 cases. Tuberculous (TB) lymphadenitis was in 8 cases. Salivary gland neoplasm's in 3 case, and 3 cases of non-neoplastic salivary gland lesions out of which sialadinitis in 2 case and sialadinosis in 1 case. 1 case of epidermal cyst. Conclusion: Fnac is a simple diagnostic tool to diagnose most important clinical conditions like metastatic deposits and TB lymphadenitis. Compared to other expensive mode of diagnosis in this modern medicine era, Fnac still plays a very important vital role in finding the occult malignant neoplasms.