Utility of Fine-Needle Aspiration Cytology as a Low-cost Tool to Diagnose Cervical Lymphadenopathy

Background and Objective:The current study aimed at observing the cytomorphological patterns in patients presenting with enlarged cervical lymphnodes, diagnosed by fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), their distribution with respect to age and gender, and determining the accuracy of FNAC as a diagnostic procedure in cases with cervical lymphadenopathy. Methods: Out of all patients presenting with cervical lymphadenopathy from September 2015 to September 2016, in the Department of Pathology, Shri Ram Murti Smarak Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India 100 consecutivecases were enrolled into the current study, following the exclusion of all cases where FNAC smears were inadequate or suboptimal for diagnostic interpretation. Histopathological examination was conducted on small excision biopsy specimens/radical neck dissection, where ever possible and diagnostic efficacy of FNAC was evaluated. Results: The overall age range of the enrolled patients, presenting with enlarged cervical lymph nodes, was 1-72 years with the mean age of 35.7 years and malefemaleratio of 1.6:1.Out of the 100 cases, benign and malignant lesions comprised 77 and 23 cases, respectively. The most common observed benign lesion was reactive hyperplasia (29%), while squamous cell carcinoma was the most common malignant lesion.The overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and the diagnostic accuracy was 100%, 91.67%, 92%, 100%, and 95.7%, respectively. Conclusion: FNAC in the diagnoses of inflammatory and neoplastic diseases serves as a reliable,low-cost, rapid diagnostic tool with reasonably good accuracy that can influence patient management in terms of early diagnoses, treatment, and prevention of unnecessary surgery in patients.