Accuracy Of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology In The Diagnosis Of Different Thyroid Lesions

Abstract

FNA is a non-invasive method, whose simplicity and safety justify its use for “selective” surgeryand is considered the “gold standard” in the management of thyroid nodules.The main aim of FNAC is to identify nodules that require surgery and those benign nodules thatcan be observed clinically and decrease the overall thyroidectomy rate in patients with benigndiseases., this study was done to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspirationcytology as a pre-operative screening methods, it is a prospective study which includes a total of100 cases for patients aged 13-64 years presented with goiter during the period Jan. 2013- Jan.2015 in Al Hussain Teaching Hospital in Kerbala. This study resulted in true negative caseswere 81 (Tn), false negative case was 1 ( Fn), True positive were 13 (Tp), and false positivewere 5 cases (Fp).Sensitivity or true positive rate is 92%, Specificity or true negative rate is94%, Positive predictive value is 72%, Negative predictive value is 98%, Accuracy rate is94%. False negative FNA cytology result was found in only one of our patients which is less ascompared to other studies where the values range from 1-16%. False negative cases areencountered when there are no recognizable diagnostic cells in the smear because of samplingor processing error. We concluded that FNA is the most recommended diagnostic procedure forthe diagnosis of thyroid lesions except follicular tumor.