Publication:

Fine needle aspiration cytology diagnostic accuracy corelation to histopathology of head and neck swelling in Manipal teaching hospital

Background Palpable neck swelling is a common clinical manifestation in otolaryngology. Rapid, inexpensive and simple method of examination for the diagnosis of such superficial masses is fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC). Objectives were to evaluate the usage of fine needle aspiration cytology as a first-line tool for diagnosis, accuracy compared with histopathology.

Method A hospital based prospective cross sectional was conducted by taking 65 patients with neck swelling presentation thyroid swelling were highest in number followed by lymph node and salivary, in which female were 43 (66.15%) and male were 22 (33.85%), the age group ranged from 6 to 75 years in ear, nose, throat (ENT) OPD of Manipal teaching hospital between 15th November 2015 to 15th May 2017. FNAC along with histopathological examination (HPE) were done and compared. For data analysis SPSS 20 version was used. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy rates were calculated. The Cohen’s Kappa statistical test was employed.

Results The overall sensitivity and specificity of FNAC was 90.76% and 98.075% respectively in determining the various pathologies. The diagnostic accuracy of FNAC in comparison to histopathology was 92.25%. This study showed almost perfect correlation (measure of agreement) between FNAC and final histopathology diagnosis of neck swellings from Cohen’s Kappa test.

Conclusions FNAC is a safe, simple and rapid method with a high sensitivity and specificity that can be done in diagnosing wide range of neck swellings.