Abstract

Background: The gold standard in the detection of thyroid swellings is fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), particularly to eliminate the necessity of surgery.
Objective: (1) To introduce FNAC as a routine diagnostic procedure in surgery; (2) to study the correlation between histopathology and cytology findings of thyroid gland lesions; and (3) to assess the diagnostic accuracy of FNAC in thyroid nodules.
Materials and Methods: This is a prospective study conducted in 485 patients from May 2011 to October 2013, who visited to the Pathology Department of our hospital. Of the total 485 patients who were subjected to FNAC, 60 patients were operated and the samples sent for histopathological examination. Only those cases that underwent FNAC and biopsy were selected for this study. Result: The histopathology findings of thyroid lesions in 60 patients, comprising six male subjects (10%) and 54 female subjects (90%; age range, 6–80 years; median, 43 years), were reviewed. The FNAC showed a sensitivity of 87.5%; specificity, 96.15%; positive predictive value, 77.77%; negative predictive value, 98.03%; and diagnostic accuracy, 95%. The efficacy of FNAC was quite reliable. Conclusion: The results are comparable with the current published data and demonstrate that FNA cytology examination in our hands is an accurate investigation for further management of thyroid lesions.