Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology of Papulonodular Lesions of Skin: A Study of 50 Cases.

INTRODUCTION: Skin is one of the frequent site of disease in human body. Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) is a safe diagnostic method in these cases. FNAC has some limitation, particularly related to representativity of samples, exact typing of skin adnexal tumours and classifying the nature of metastatic cutaneous nodules. Thus, FNAC alone may not give a confirmative diagnosis regarding few skin lesions. Hence, histopathological study has been the standard technique for the diagnosis of skin lesions.

AIM: To study the FNAC findings in various papulonodular lesions and to correlate them with histopathological findings wherever possible.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the present study, 50 cases of clinically diagnosed papulonodular lesions were evaluated by FNAC and correlated with histopathology wherever possible.

RESULTS: There was 100% correlation in cases of epidermal cyst, leprosy, tuberculosis, actinomycosis, acute and chronic inflammatory lesions and 67% accuracy was seen in adnexal tumours. Aspiration cytology along with radiological studies proved very useful in classifying the nature of metastatic cutaneous nodules and suggesting the possible site of unknown primary. Sensitivity of FNAC for epidermal cyst and inflammatory lesions was 100%. In case of adnexal tumours, sensitivity and specificity was 67% and 50% respectively.

CONCLUSION: FNAC is a rapid, efficient, cost effective, relatively painless procedure and produces a speedy result with high diagnostic accuracy. It has high rates of sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing papulonodular lesions of skin and hence, is a valuable tool in the diagnosis and management of patients with papulonodular skin lesions.