Altaf Hussain Talpur, Abdul Aziz Laghari, Arshad Mahmood Malik, Sangrasi Ahmed Khan.
Role of FNAC versus histopathology in diagnosis of various body lumps.
J Liaquat Uni Med Health Sci Jan ;6(3):103-8.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of FNAC versus histopathology in various body lumps. DESIGN: Quasi-experimental study. SETTING: Surgical department of Liaquat University Hospital Jamshoro/ Hyderabad, Sindh- Pakistan, from January 2003 to December 2005. PATIENTS AND METHODS: One hundred and sixty five patients with lumps at various body sites were studied. Patients were evaluated by history, examination and investigations. Then they underwent for FNAC followed by open biopsy. Reports of FNAC and histopathology were compared and accuracy of FNAC assessed. RESULTS: Out of 165 cases, 92 (55.76%) had neck lumps (with thyroid and extra-thyroid swellings, 46-cases each), 35 (21.21%) breast lumps, 10 (6.06%) parotid swellings and 11 (6.66%) cases had axillary lump as main sites for FNAC, along with various other parts of body. FNAC revealed benign neoplastic conditions in 13.94% of cases, malignancy in 18.18%, tuberculous lymphadenopathy in 14.54%, goitre in 18.79%, and inflammatory lesions in 11.52% of cases as main lesions with false negative results of 18.78% and false positive result of 0.60%, whereas histopathology revealed malignancy in 24.85%, benign neoplastic lesions in 20.0%, goitres in 19.39%, tuberculous lymphadenopathy in 23.03% as main disease problems. CONCLUSION: FNAC has high sensitivity and specificity in diagnosis of various body lumps. Findings of this study are almost comparable to histopathology however, FNAC shows high false negative results which may be due faulty sampling technique or lack of expertise.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com