RETROSPECTIVE STUDY OF ULTRASONOGRAPHIC AND FNAC CORRELATION OF THYROID LESIONS WITH HISTOPATHOLOGY

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Thyroid diseases, a common clinical problem have prevalence rate of 4–7% in the general population. Fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a minimally invasive, accurate diagnostic tool which can differentiate neoplastic from non-neoplastic lesions and reduces the number of unnecessary thyroidectomies, but has limitations . Our study was a retrospective an METHODOLOGY: alysis of 124 cases of thyroid lesions over a period of 3 years from April2019 to April 2022. The FNAC ndings were reviewed and data was compared with the histopathological, imaging ndings and data was analysed. Majority of the pat RESULTS: ients were females in the age group of 41–60 years with a mean age of 42 years and most were non-neoplastic lesions. 76 cases were diagnosed as colloid nodular goitre and benign cystic lesions by FNAC. 44 cases were diagnosed as neoplastic lesions (follicular neoplasm, papillary carcinoma, and suspected malignancy) by FNAC. 18 of these cases were non neoplastic lesions, 24 were papillary carcinoma, 2 were follicular carcinoma on histopathological examination . Statistical analysis of neoplastic lesions showed sensitivity, specicity, accuracy, false positive rate, false negative rate, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of FNAC to be 69.09%, 90.7%, 80.8%, 9.2%, 30.9%, 86.3% and 77.6% respectively. Ultrasound was foun CONCLUSION: d to be more reliable than palpation, but denitive diagnosis can be reached only with FNAC/Biopsy. Bethesda system of reporting thyroid cytology should be meticulously followed to minimize errors and a repeat FNAC asked for discordant cases after a multidisciplinary team conference.