title: Fine needle aspiration of 123 head and neck masses--an initial experience.
abstract: Fine needle aspiration (FNA) is a relatively new technique in the investigation of head and neck masses in Singapore. We present our initial experience with 123 neck masses; 82 were lymph nodes, 33 were salivary gland masses and eight were others. The inadequacy rate (percentage of hypocellular yields) was 12.2% with a cytology: histology accuracy rate of 82.6%. The aspiration trolley set-up and improvements in tissue handling reduced the number of inadequate smears. A study of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) with neck recurrence showed the difficulty encountered with FNA in irradiated necks. In "occult" (clinically normal nasopharynx) NPC with a neck mass as the first presentation, FNA guided us to re-search the nasopharynx.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kaur
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Chew
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Lim-Tan
mesh_terms: D001707:Biopsy, Needle / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000556:secondary; D006801:Humans; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology; D009333:Neck / Q000473:pathology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012469:Salivary Glands / Q000473:pathology; D013194:Staining and Labeling / Q000379:methods