The value of fine-needle aspiration cytology in the evaluation of pediatric head and neck tumors

Objective: To study the efficacy of fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) of head and neck masses in pediatric patients. Study design: Of the 128 cases studied, FNAC was performed in 74 patients and their cyto-histological correlation done. Sensitivity and specificity of cytological diagnosis was then computed. Results: Benign lesions were found to be more common than the malignant variety, the commonest being soft tissue tumors (46.87%). Lymphomas were the commonest tumors (22.6%) in the malignant category. Cytology was done in 74 patients of whom smears from 21 patients were unsatisfactory for diagnosis. There was one false positive and two false negative cases resulting in the specificity and sensitivity of FNAC in pediatric head and neck tumors to be 95.65% and 93.3% respectively. Conclusion: FNAC is a useful and reliable tool in the diagnosis of head and neck masses with no contraindications and minimal complications even in children. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.