Diagnostic Superiority of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) Technique and Fine Needle Non-Aspiration Cytology (FNNAC) in Thyroid Lesions

Background: Evaluate the diagnostic superiority of FNAC with FNNAC in lesions of thyroid gland. Study design: Cross Sectional Study. Setting: Pathology Department, KEMU, Lahore. Duration of study: 15-2-2015 to 14-08-2015. Methods: FNAC/FNNAC was performed on 260 patients (taking expected percentage of diagnostic superiority of FNAC as 60%) and the diagnostic superiority was assessed using “Modified Scoring System of Mair and colleagues” (a score ≥7 was considered superior). Chi-square test was applied post-stratification with p-value ≤0.05 considered as significant. Results: The results (when compared for size of nodule) supported FNNAC in smaller nodule 1-5 cm (p=0.021) however in larger nodule >10cm, the results supported FNAC (p=0.003). The results (when compared for all parameters) supported FNNAC but the difference was not statistically significant except background blood (p=0.014). On categorizing, FNNAC yielded more significant diagnostic superior samples (p=0.000) than FNAC. Conclusion: There are significantly higher diagnostic superior results of FNNAC than FNAC for thyroid lesions.