Accuracy of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology and Incidence of Benign/Malignant Tumours in Solitary Thyroid Nodules

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is still considered the gold standard test for the diagnosis of solitary thyroid nodules (STN). To determine the accuracy of Fine Needle Aspiration and Incidence of Malignant and Benign tumours in solitary nodules of thyroid

METHODS AND RESULTS

This is a cross-sectional and descriptive study involving 122 patients of any age and sex who had solitary thyroid nodules attending the surgical out-patient department and later subjected to surgery. The study was conducted at Government Chengalpattu Medical College, Chengalpattu. The study period was from 2012 to 2014.The patients included in the study had a STN clinically and sonographically. All the patients included were biochemically euthyroid and all underwent hemi-thyroidectomy. All the cytology and histopathology samples were correlated.

The sensitivity (56.3), Specificity (98.10% ), positive predictive value (81.80%), negative predictive value (93.70%) and accuracy of FNAC (93%) were analyzed. The incidence of malignant tumours was 13.11% and benign tumours were 7.38%.

CONCLUSION

We conclude that FNAC is an invaluable and minimally invasive procedure for pre-operative assessment of patients with a thyroid nodule. FNAC has high accuracy in the diagnostic evaluation of thyroid nodule. This study intends to alert the public about the simple mode of diagnosis, knowledge about definitive treatment and a proper follow-up once a histopathological diagnosis is obtained.