Aspiration Cytology for Thyroid Lump in Remote Areas of Sindh

Background: Scandinavian countries were the first to use fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) as a diagnostic tool in the 1930. Fine needle aspiration cytology is a diagnostic approach, which helps the clinicians in diagnosis of the various lesions. Most common sites which can be targeted include breast lumps, lymph nodes, thyroid masses and other palpable swellings. The most common lesion encountered is thyroid nodule. In current cross sectional study we tried to find frequency of different thyroid lesions by fine needle aspiration cytology in different rural areas of Sindh.

Methodology and Results: 158 samples were recruited from the Vital Laboratory Larkana with different pathological midline neck (thyroid) swelling during 2014 and 2015 by non-probability consecutive sampling. 125 (79.1%) were females and 33 (20.9%) were males with a ratio of 4:1. Majority of case were of 20-39 years of age (52.5%). Most of the cases were diagnosed with nodular goiter (88.6%) followed by colloid goiter (4.4%). In present study we failed to find any association of diagnosis with gender (p =0.211) and age (p =0.553).

Conclusion: So in this study we concluded that large number of thyroid lesions present with nodular goiter at the age of 20-39 years. The frequency is increased for these lesions due to different risk factors.