Efficacy of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology in Diagnosis and Management of Thyroid Nodule

Abstract

Thyroid nodules are common and the principal method of diagnosis is fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC). The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosis of thyroid carcinoma, by comparing the final pathological diagnosis with the initial FNAC result.

Seventy-four cases of patients with thyroid nodules who underwent pre-operative FNAC and thyroidectomy at Samutsakhon hospital from January 2003 to December 2007 were analysed. FNAC was correlated with histology and the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy in diagnosis of thyroid carcinoma, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were calculated. The overall results showed a sensitivity of 33.33%, specificity of 100%, diagnostic accuracy of 89.28%, positive predictive value of 100% and negative predictive value of 88.68%. From this study, it can be concluded that FNAC has high specificity and high diagnostic accuracy in diagnosis of thyroid carcinoma. It plays a useful role in planning the surgical management of thyroid nodules.