Swagatika Agrawal, Pranita Mohanty, Raghumani Mohanty
BACKGROUND Conventional cytology is a minimal invasive procedure used for all palpable lesions. Liquid Based Cytology (LBC) is a modified technique used in the current study. The objective of the study is to find out the diagnostic accuracy of Liquid Based Cytology (LBC) as compared to Conventional FNAC (CP) in thyroid cases. MATERIALS AND METHODS A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted in eastern India. All thyroid swelling cases referred for FNAC were included. Results were captured with general profile of the patients. Data was analysed for diagnostic accuracy using Stata. RESULTS Concordance rate between LBC and CP was 70.8% (highest for malignancy (92.8%)). Sensitivity CP and LBC was 82.4(56.6 – 96.2) and 75.0% (47.6 – 92.7) respectively, and specificity was 100.0(93 – 100.0) and 97.1% (74.6 – 97) respectively. PPV and NPV for CP were 100.0% (76.8 – 100.0) and 94.4% (84.6 – 98.8) respectively and for LBC were 92.3% (64.0 – 99.8) and 89.2% (74.6 – 97.0) respectively. LR+ in LBC was found to be high (25.5). CONCLUSION LBC can help ruling in malignancy in thyroid but FNAC (CP) remains the procedure of choice.