THE DIAGNOSTIC VALUE OF FINE NEEDLE ASPIRATION BIOPSY OF HEAD AND NECK MASSES

In an attempt to determine the diagnostic value of FNA biopsy of head and neck masses, we reviewed FNAs performed on target lesions of the head and neck in1 59 patients who subsequently underwent surgery in Khalili hospital dur-. ing a 55 month period. Results ofFNAs were compared with postsurgical histologic diagnoses. These 159 cases were broken down into four categories: thyroid masses 34 , lymph nodes 3 6, salivary gland masses 58 , and masses not classified in the first three categories 31 . Values of specificity, sensitivity, positive predictive vlaue (in diagnosing malignancy) and negative predictive value (in diagnosis of benign disease) were calculated for each category and for all masses. Overall, we obtained a sensitivity of 77%, specificity of 94%, positive predictive value of 84% and negative predictive value of90% that was comparable with several other studies performed elsewhere, except that our elevated numbers of false negative in the salivary gland category lowered the sensitivity of FNA in this category to 57% and the overall sensitivity to 77%. The other disparity between our results and those of other studies I is our slightly elevated false negative rate (6.9%), overall sensitivity.