title: Fine needle aspiration cytology of thyroid lesions and its correlation with histopathology in a series of 248 patients.
abstract: Thyroid swellings are a significant clinical problem in the general population but majority of them are nonneoplastic and do not require surgery. The initial screening procedures include ultrasonography, fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and radionucleotide scan. An initial screening test which will diagnose thyroid lesions accurately will help to avoid surgery in nonneoplastic conditions. The aim of the present study is to correlate the cytology findings with final histopathology. Two hundred and forty-eight cases of thyroid nodules which underwent FNAC followed by surgery were included in this study. The cytology diagnoses were classified into nondiagnostic/unsatisfactory, benign, atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance, follicular neoplasm/suspicious for a follicular neoplasm, suspicious for malignancy and malignant. The fine needle aspiration diagnosis was compared with the histopathology diagnosis. In majority of cases the FNA diagnosis was in concordance with final histopathology. A high incidence of follicular variant of papillary carcinoma thyroid was detected in this study. The awareness of this entity and the search for fine nuclear details of papillary carcinoma can lead to proper identification of this category of tumors and thus help to avoid false negative and equivocal results. Fine needle aspiration cytology is a simple, cost effective, rapid to perform procedure with high degree of accuracy and is recommended as the first line investigation for the diagnosis of thyroid lesions.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India 695011.
authors.forename: Renu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sukumaran
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India 695011.
authors.forename: Jayasree
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kattoor
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India 695011.
authors.forename: K Raveendran
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Pillai
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India 695011.
authors.forename: Preethi T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Ramadas
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India 695011.
authors.forename: Nileena
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nayak
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India 695011.
authors.forename: Thara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Somanathan
authors.affiliation: Division of Surgical Oncology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India.
authors.forename: Nebu Abraham
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: George
authors.affiliation: Division of Surgical Oncology, Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum, Kerala India.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sebastian
keywords: Fine needle aspiration cytology; Follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma; Papillary carcinoma thyroid; Thyroid neoplasm