Abstract

Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a simple, rapid, out-patient investigation procedure for the diagnosis of palpable lumps of many organs in the body. It is a valuable pre-operative investigation of choice as it helps in precise and appropriate patient management. The study was undertaken to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the FNAC in neoplastic and non neoplastic lesions of the liver and to correlate the FNAC diagnosis with histopathology. An analysis of 65 fine needle aspiration biopsies of the liver has been presented. In the present study, males constituted 73.84% and females 26.15% with Male to Famale ratio of 2.8:1. Majority of the patients presented between 3rd and 5th decades with the peak incidence in 4th decade. The diagnostic yield in the present study was 97%. Out of 65 cases, 4.61% were found to be inadequate for reporting. Of the 65 cases, normal aspirate accounted for 15.38%, benign 46.15% and malignant 33.84% of cases. Of the 22 malignant aspirates, 45.45% were primary and 54.55% were metastatic lesions. The diagnostic accuracy of liver aspirations in the present study was 95.24%. False negative rate in the present study was 7.14% and False positive rate was 3.57%. No complications were encountered during the procedure, in the present study. The present study shows that fine needle aspiration cytology, is one of the best investigation with a fairly good accuracy which can be achieved with greater experience and expertise. Hence we conclude that FNAC of liver is a safe, simple and rapid method that can be done in the diagnosis of wide range of diseases.

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