Cytological evaluation of thyroid lesions and its correlation with histopathology in a teaching hospital

Aim of the Study: To study the cytomorphological features in various thyroid lesions and to correlate the cytological features with histopathological study of surgically removed thyroid lesions. Materials and Methods: Both retrospective and prospective study was carried out at Department of Pathology, Maheshwara Medical College and Hospital, over a period of two years. Patients from General Surgery, ENT, Paediatrics and from General Medicine OPD were taken for FNAC. Thyroid FNACs in 94 patients were done during this period and 69 cases underwent histopathological examination. The findings of FNAC and histopathology were compared. Results: Patient age ranged from 9 to 75 years. Majority of the patients (28.7%) were in the 21-30 years age group. The male to female ratio was 1:22.4. On cytology, Nodular goitre was the most common diagnosis (39.3%). Follicular neoplasm was reported in 04 cases (4.2%). On Histopathology, benign diagnosis (91.3%) far outnumbered the malignant ones (8.6% cases). FNAC showed overall diagnostic accuracy of 98.5% with specificity of 100%, sensitivity of 85.7%, Positive predictive value of 100%, and Negative predictive value of 98.4%. Conclusion: FNAC technique showed good reliability in diagnosing thyroid lesions in our institute. It showed 100% specificity, high sensitivity and high accuracy. Though FNAC cannot replace the gold standard of histopathology, this technique has many advantages and helps in preoperative diagnosis of thyroid lesions which guides the further clinical management of patients with thyroid swellings.