Diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis of malignant solitary thyroid nodule

Objective: Objective of this study was to evaluate diagnostic accuracy of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosing solitary thyroid nodule keeping histopathology as gold standard.Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Combined Military Hospital, Multan from 27 Aug 2010 to 26 Feb 2011. Material and Methods: Three hundred and forty nine patients were included in the study through non-probability convenient sampling. In outdoor visit, after taking detailed history, general physical examination was done. Patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were admitted in ward. The procedure of FNA was explained in detail to the patient and Informed consent was taken. Results: Out of 349 patients, all underwent FNAC whereas 321 underwent surgery. FNAC showed 113/321 (35.20 percent) patients to have malignancy, however after surgery 109 / 321 (32.08 percent) patients were found to have malignancy on histopathology. Eighteen patients were diagnosed as papillary CA on FNAC all confirmed on histopathology. Follicular carcinoma was diagnosed in 35 patients on FNAC. However, only 32 were actually found to have the disease on histopathology. Conclusion: Role of FNAC is quite conclusive for the diagnosing malignancy and proposing surgery in most of cases of cold nodules due to its potential for malignancy. FNAC can be relied upon due to good sensitivity (92.56 percent), specificity (95.81 percent), Accuracy (94.49 percent), Positive predictive value 93.83 percent and Negative predictive value of 94.93 percent (author)