Diagnostic efficacy of ultrasonography-guided fine needle aspiration cytology on thyroid swellings

Introduction: Patients presenting with a thyroid nodule, if malignant, may call for removal. A good screening tool with high diagnostic value for preoperative evaluation is preferred. Through real-time visualization of the needle to aspirate from the suspicious site, ultrasonography-guided fine-needle aspiration cytology could be an excellent screening tool. Materials and method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at Ganesh Man Singh Memorial Academy of Ear Nose Throat-Head and Neck Studies, Kathmandu, Nepal, from September 2018 to November 2019. We included 59 subjects of 15-72 years meeting the inclusion criteria. All study participants underwent preoperative ultrasonography-guided fine-needle aspiration cytological evaluation of thyroid nodule, which was correlated with their histopathological findings to determine diagnostic values. Result: The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of ultrasonography-guided fine-needle aspiration cytology of thyroid nodule was 96.96%, 61.53%, and 81.35%, respectively. On stratification according to size, high sensitivity of 100% was observed in evaluating lesions of size <2 cm and >4 cm. There was a good inter-rater agreement between findings of ultrasonography-guided fine-needle aspiration cytology and histopathology with a kappa coefficient of 0.607. Conclusion: Ultrasonography-guided fine needle aspiration cytology is a reliable procedure to evaluate thyroid lesions with high diagnostic value. It is an excellent tool for evaluating small, non-palpable nodules.