Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) on thyroid diseases; HUSM experience on 477 cases with histological correlation of 148 of them

Abstract

A total of 477 patients with thyroid diseases were examined by FNAC over a period of 3 years. Out of this 71.5% of the aspirates were cytopathologically classified as benign lesions, 2.5% as inflammatory (thyroiditis), 10.5% as follicular lesions and 10.5% were malignant. 4.8% of the aspiration were unsatisfactory. 148 of these cases underwent surgical removal. The accuracy of the cytologic diagnoses were compared with histopathological examination of the operated surgical specimens to determine the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the cytopathological diagnosis. A sensitivity of 80.0%, a specificity of 99.03% and an accuracy of 95.9% were noted. This strongly supports that FNAC is an important preoperative diagnostic tool for all thyroid diseases.