Cytomorphological Study of Spectrum of Lymph Node Lesions in Tertiary Care Hospital in India

Introduction and Background:Lymphadenopathy is an abnormal increase in size and/ or altered consistency of lymphnodes. The use of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in the investigation of lymphadenopathy has become an acceptable and widely practiced minimally invasive technique, which is safe, simple and rapid.The main objective of present study was categorizing various lesions of lymphadenopathy by cytology.Materials and Methods:This was a 2 years and 3 months study done in Department of Pathology, Kodagu Institute of Medical Sciences, Madikeri, Karnataka, India.It included 309 patients with lymphadenopathies at various sites. Acellular aspirates were excluded from the study. FNAC was conducted with the help of a 22 guage disposable needle attached to a 5cc syringe. Haematoxylin, Eosin stain & Papanicolaou stains were done on alcohol fixed smears. May-Grunwald Giemsa Stain was done on air-dried smears.Ziehl-Neelsen stain was done when tuberculosis was suspected for the demonstration of acid-fast bacilli. The results were expressed as percentage and were tabulated. Results and Discussion:Maximum number of patients were diagnosed with Reactive Lymphadenitis followed by Granulomatous lymphadenitis. The other lesions were acute suppurative lymphadenitis, Metastatic Lymphadenopathy,Tuberculous Lymphadenitis, Lymphomas and Non -Specific Lymphadenitis. The most common site of lymph node aspiration was cervical group of lymph nodes. The most common malignancy with lymph node metastasis was Squamous cell carcinoma.Conclusion:FNA is a convenient, quick and accurate procedure that can be performed in patients attending outpatient department. Reactive lymphadenitis was the most common lesion detected in FNA of lymph nodes in our study with cervical group of lymph nodes being the most commonly affected group.