Suresh Kumar, Shakil Aqil, Abdullah Dahar.
Role of fine needle aspiration cytology in thyroid diseases.
J Surg Pak Jan ;13(1):22-5.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy and efficacy of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in thyroid gland diseases. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place & Duration of study: Department of Otolaryngology / Head & Neck Surgery Liaquat National Hospital Karachi, from April 2001 to December 2005. Patients & Methods: Eighty nine patients with enlarged thyroid gland, of both sexes were selected from out patients department. All patients had preoperative FNAC, performed by pathologist at histopathology department and postoperative specimens were also examined and histopathological diagnosis made. All FNAC reports were correlated with histopathology diagnosis. Results: Out of 89 patients 60 were female and 29 male. In 82 patients FNAC showed benign lesion, of which 80 were true negative and 2 were false negative, which on hisopathology reported malignant. Remaining 9 cases were diagnosed as malignant on histopathology of which 7 were true positive. No case of false positive was detected in our study. Over all sensitivity was 77%, specificity of 100% and accuracy 97.7%. Conclusions: FNAC is reliable, safe and accurate method as a first line of evaluation in thyroid gland nodules before surgery. FNAC is more specific than sensitive in detecting thyroid gland malignancy and therefore its use as a reliable diagnostic test cannot be overemphasized

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