FNAC for Differential Diagnosis of Bone Tumors And Tumor-like Lesions

Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) has established itself as a diagnostic modality in various visceral and soft tissue lesions. However its usage in the diagnosis of different bony lesions has not received much attention. Open surgical biopsy is considered as the procedure of choice for obtaining diagnostic tissue sampling of bone tumors (Kreicbergs et al., 1996). Apart from being an inpatient procedure and cost, other disadvantages of this procedure is disruption of compartments, contamination of surrounding tissues, risk of infection, hematoma and pathological fracture (Mankin et al., 1982). Fine needle aspiration is easier to perform, kinder to the patient, and less invasive than a large core needle biopsy or an open biopsy (Bommer et al., 1997). However FNAC has not been widely applied in the diagnosis of bone masses. This could be due to technical problems, the morphological heterogenesity of bone tumors and anticipated difficulty in obtaining adequate tissue material chiefly due to limited experience (Kreicbergs et al., 1996). With the development