ROLE OF FINE NEEDLE ASPIRATION CYTOLOGY (FNAC) IN BONE TUMORS AND TUMOR LIKE LESIONS

Background: FNAC is considered an important procedure in the diagnosis of bone tumors because of its high accuracy. In our study FNA was performed in patients to study the role of FNAC in the diagnosis of bone tumors and to evaluate its usefulness as a diagnostic modality. Methods: Fine needle aspiration was performed on 54 patients whose age ranged between 5 – 75 years with a male to female ratio 1.84 :1 presented with various bone lesions. The bone lesions included 42 (78%) primary lesions, 5 (9.3%) metastatic deposits and 7 (12. 7%) malignancy of related structures involving the bone. Results: 47 biopsy specimens were available for cytohistological correlation and cytological ndings of 45 cases correlated with histopathology. The overall diagnostic accuracy was 95.92%, with 100% sensitivity and specicity. The predictive values of positive as well as negative test were 100%. Conclusions:Thus FNAwas found to be a safe and an extremely useful, rapid method in the preliminary diagnosis of bone lesions.