Role of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology in the Diagnosis of Skin and Superficial Soft Tissue Lesions: A Study of 255 Cases

Diseases of the skin and superficial subcutaneous soft tissues present with a wide array of lesions ranging from nonspecific dermatoses and inflammatory lesions to frank neoplasms. Though cytopathology is an excellent diagnostic tool in routine dermatologic practice, studies relating to histopathological and cytological correlation are sparse. The aim of this study was to analyze the concordance rate between cytological and histopathological diagnosis of skin and superficial soft tissue lesions.

We retrospectively studied 255 consecutive fine needle aspiration cytology findings of cases from October 2016 to June 2017 was carried out in the Department of Pathology, Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences and associated Hospital, Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, India and correlated their diagnoses based upon cytological and histopathological grounds.

Out of the 255 cases studied, 126 were non neoplastic lesions and 129 were neoplastic. A high degree of concordance was observed (100% for malignant and 96.15% for benign lesions) when these two diagnostic modalities were compared. Histopathological correlation was possible in all malignant, 35/129 (27.13%) of benign and 19/126 (15.07%) of non-neoplastic lesions. Sensitivity and specificity of diagnoses were 95.31% and 97.6%, respectively.

It can be safely concluded that fine needle aspiration cytology is a rapid, reliable and fairly accurate tool for initial triage and treatment of skin and superficial soft tissue lesions.