Publication:

Diagnostic efficacy of fine needle aspiration cytology in soft tissue tumors and cytohistological correlation

Background Soft tissues are the supportive tissue of various organ as well as the nonepithelial, extraskeletal structure. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a rapid diagnostic technique with limited patient morbidity for diagnosing soft tissue tumours. However, FNAC of soft tissue lesion has not been widely used because of concern about its diagnostic accuracy. The difficulties arise in exact typing and diagnosis of low-grade sarcomas. This study was undertaken to study the acceptability and diagnostic efficacy of cytodiagnosis as compared conventional histological diagnosis and determine distribution of soft tissue tumours according to age and sex.

Methods The study was conducted in the department of pathology, RNT Medical College, Udaipur for period of 1 year. FNAC was done in 77 cases of suspected soft tissue tumors. In 51 cases biopsy resorted and HPE carried out. On the correlation of FNAC diagnosis with histopathological diagnosis the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and positive predictive were calculated.

Results Maximum number of cases noted were in 40 to 60 years of age with wide range of 11 months to 81 years. Male to female ratio was 1.8:1. Out of total 51 cases 38 found benign and rest were found malignant. Lipomas were the commonest soft tissue tumors. Overall sensitivity obtained in the study using cytology as compared to histopathology was 100%, specificity was 67%, positive predictive value was 54%, negative predictive value was 100%.

Conclusions Cytology though with pitfall, can serve as a diagnostic tool especially when a rapid diagnosis is required.