Ultrasound guided Fine Needle Aspiration cytology of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic lesions

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the reliability of ultrasound(USG) guided fine needle aspiration cytology(FNAC) in distinguishing between benign and malignant lesions of pancreas and hepatobiliary system and report the findings of significance. The cytology findings were correlated with histology, wherever possible. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in the department of Pathology, Jawaharlal Medical College, Aligarh in collaboration with department of radiology from 2001 to 2002.The study included 95 patients out of which 56 were females and 39 were males. Most patients presented with Right hypochondrial mass and others with pain or discomfort in the abdomen. After clinical examination, patients were sent for USG examination and USG guided FNAC of the mass and cytological examination of the smears was done. Subsequent to it, some patients underwent surgery. Tissue obtained from surgery was examined by histopathology. Results: Sex distribution of patients showed 58.95% females and 41.05% males. Out of 95 patients, malignant lesions constituted 64 cases(67.37%),benign and inflammatory lesions together comprised 18 cases(18.95%). 9 cases(9.47%) were found inadequate for diagnosis and 4 smears(4.21%) were found to be suspicious for malignancy. In this study, we achieved an overall diagnostic accuracy of 95.65%.No major complications were encountered. Conclusions: We concluded that USG guided FNAC is a safe and accurate method for diagnosis of hepatobiliary lesions and sonography is ideally suited as a method of guidance.