FNAC OF HEAD & NECK LESIONS AND ITS UTILITY IN CLINICAL DIAGNOSIS: A STUDY OF 290 CASES

Abstract

Background: FNAC (Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology) is a well accepted technique and plays an important role in early diagnosis of head and neck lesions. It is a safe and inexpensive outdoor procedure.

Material and methods: This was a retrospective observational study of 290 cases of FNACs done on head and neck swellings performed as an outdoor procedure over a 26-month period from January 2011 to February 2013.

Results: Aspirates from head and neck lesions in this study were largely from lymph nodes i.e. 185(64.1%), followed by thyroid lesions 49(16.9%), 21 cases were malignant. The largest subgroup among lymph node was of granulomatous lymphadenitis comprising of 91 cases. Out of 290 cases in this study, histopathological correlation was available in 74/290 (25.51%) cases only and was consistent with the cytological diagnoses in 68(91.8%) cases and inconsistent in 6(8.2%) cases.

Conclusion: FNAC serves as a guide to the appropriate therapeutic management whether to locally excise a benign tumor or plan radical surgery and helps as an adjunct to histopathology.