Introduction: Thyroid diseases are among the commonest endocrine disorders worldwide. In order to avoid misdiagnosis and hence unnecessary surgery in patients with benign thyroid nodules, it is essential to distinguish between benign and malignant lesions. Despite the proven clinical importance of thyroid FNAC, it still has limitations. To overcome these limitations to some extent Cell Block technique can be used. It has a pivotal role in diagnosis and ancillary studies. In this study, we evaluated the role of Cell Block as a useful adjunct to cytological smears for establishing a more definitive Cytopathological diagnosis.

Material and Methods: Present study was a prospective cross sectional study conducted from Nov 2017 to Oct 2019. 334 cases with thyroid swelling underwent FNAC. Of these 334, Cell Blocks were prepared by plasma thromboplastin method for 273 cases and histopathology was available for 66 cases.

Results: In this study, the age range was 8-76 years. Maximum number of cases were 96 (28.75%) in age group of 31-40 years. Female to male ratio was 10.1:1.The Sensitivity, Specificity, Positive predictive value, Negative predictive value and Diagnostic Accuracy of Cell Block in categorising neoplastic and non-neoplastic thyroid lesions was more than FNAC and when these two techniques were used together all statistical indices increased further.

Conclusion: Cell Block is a complimentary technique to cytological smears to increase the Sensitivity, Specificity and Diagnostic Accuracy in thyroid lesions.

Keywords: Thyroid lesion, FNAC, Cell Block, Adequacy, Diagnostic Accuracy.

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Dr Jasleenkaur S Oberoi

Junior Resident Ⅲ, Department of Pathology, GMC, Akola, Maharashtra, India