Introduction: Fine needle aspiration cytology is now a day a procedure of choice as first line of investigation in diagnosing non-neoplastic and neoplastic swellings of different areas and has been found to be highly accurate and very useful, for, it can reduce patient’s hospital stay, cost, early diagnosis after presentation and early treatment.

Material and Methods: In this study, fine needle aspiration was done and whenever possible histology was done and data was compared to access the importance of FNAC.

Result: Histo-cyto correlation is seen in majority of cases and at various sites including breast, head and neck, salivary glands, thyroid and other body sites but few cases without correlation also occur depicting the limitations of aspiration cytology.

Conclusion: Even though a number of limitations occur, FNAC has high accuracy in diagnosing benign and malignant lesion thus reduces the period between presentation and diagnosis.

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Dr Peeyush Kumar Saini

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