DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i06.004

Pages: 1884-1887

Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a well-established diagnostic technique for the preoperative evaluation of thyroid nodules allowing a significant reduction in the number of surgical operations. Over the past few decades, FNAC has developed as the most accurate and cost effective initial method for guiding the clinical management of patients with disorders of the thyroid gland. However, the Bethesda category III (atypia of undetermined significance/ follicular lesion of undetermined significance) of thyroid cytology is somewhat heterogeneous and includes different pathological entities.A retrospective study done over a period of 2 years. Study sample included 87 patients with a cytological diagnosis of “atypia of undetermined significance/ follicular lesion of undetermined significance”. Subsequent histological assessment of the study sample showed several well distinct pathological entities. The majority of cases (80.45 %) in category III were histologically proven to be non-neoplastic while 19.52% was confirmed as neoplastic. Among the neoplastic lesions 13.78 % was benign while 5.74 % was proven to be malignant. There was no significant difference in the age, sex, site and size of the lesion between the benign and malignant categories. According to the results of the present study the category III of Bethesda classification was somewhat indefinite in arriving at a precise diagnosis to plan out the surgical management. Clinical details were not reliable in separating the benign and malignant groups of category III. Hence we recommend radiological correlation of the thyroid lesion in identifying the high risk patients.