114 guided fine-needle aspirations were performed in 80 cases of abdominal masses and 34 spinal lesions. Of these, while 73 were US-guided, 41 were CT-guided. Adequate material for cytologic interpretation was obtained in 90.35% aspirates, of which 82.7% were malignant, 4.8% benign, 3.8% were suspicious of malignancy and 8.7% were inflammatory in nature. Liver was the commonest intra-abdominal organ to be aspirated (48.75%). Metastatic deposits were the most commonly detected conditions in both intra-abdominal masses and spinal lesions. Tuberculosis was an important non-neoplastic cause for both intra-abdominal masses (40%) as well as spinal lesions (55.56%). An overall accuracy of 93.2% was achieved by radiologically guided FNAB, with a sensitivity of 94.38% anda specificity of 85.71%. No major complications occured during the study. Guided precutaneous FNAC is a very valuable tool in terms of a higher degree of both accuracy and adequacy, with a low incidence of complications.

Cyto-preparation of fluids is as important as cytodiagnosis in providing a good diagnostic service. A total of 134 fluid specimens consisting of 41 urine, 40 pleural fluid and 53 peritoneal fluid were processed by routine sediment smear and Millipore filter technique. The cytological diagnosis was categorized as suspicious, positive and negative for malignancy. Comparison of the two techniques was done with regards to recovery of cells, preservation of cell morphology, cell distribution and smear background. The differences were tested for significance by Chi-square tests. ‘P’ value less than 0.05 was considered significant. P value was significant for the parameters: celluiarity and distribution of cells for all three types of fluid. Significant difference was also observed for the parameter morphology of cells except for pleural fluid specimens. For urine specimens, morphology of cells was well preserved in 29 cases (70.7%) with Millipore filtration as compared to 12 cases (29.7%) with sediment smear technique. How ever p value was not significant (p=0.056). An additional 4 specimens (2.9%) with malignant cells were diagnosed by Millipore preparation. Although sediment smear technique is simple rapid, technical difficulties of Millipore filtration are clearly outweighed by the significant retrieval of well preserved, evenly distributed diagnostic cells. Therefore Millipore filtration can be a better option for cell concentration in fluid specimens as compared to the routine sediment smear technique.

The current study was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of FNAC in both benign and malignant solitary nodule of thyroid in relation to histopathology. The study was carried out on 507 patients. Cytological examination of470 cases proved to be benign, 30 malignant and 7 were inconclusive. Most of the benign cases were treated medically. Histopathology was available in 145 cases only. On the basis of FNAC of these 145 cases, 127 patients were found to have benign thyroid lesions whereas 18 cases had thyroid malignancy. Histopathologically, 126 were found to be benign where as 19 cases were malignant. Only 2 cases were wrongly diagnosed as having benign lesion by FNAC and one case as malignant. The accuracy of FNAC in diagnosing malignant thyroid lesions was found to be 97.93%. The sensitivity and specificity were found to be 89.47% and 99.20% respectively.

The present study was undertaken to determine the efficacy of squash smears in diagnosing brain lesions. Squash smears were prepared from 50 cases of intracranial space occupying lesions operated in the neurosurgical unit Astrocytoma was the commonest tumour (30%) followed by pituitary adenoma (14%) meningioma (12%) and oligodendroglioma(12%). There was one case eachof epidermal cyst, arachnoid cyst and neurilemmoma. A cytological diagnosis was made on these smears and later confirmed by histopathology. Correct cytological diagnosis was made in 86% cases. Cellular tumours with softer consistency yeilded better results as compared to tumours with more fibrous & vascular components. The diagnostic details of various tumours is discussed, and this method has proved to be fairly reliable in making rapid diagnosis.

The present study was undertaken to report the frequency of lower genital tract infections, precancerous and cancerous lesions of the uterine cervix in postmenopausal women in their sixth decade of life versus premenopausal women in their fifth decade of life. Altogether 25270 pap smears were collected during nine year period, of them 4705 were postmenopausal and 20565 premenopausal. Inadequacy of smears was almost double(12%) in postmenopausal as compared to (5.9%) in premenopausal. Inflammatory changes, specific infections and precancerous lesions were relatively low as 70.3%, 3.2% and 0.45% respectively in postmenopausal, however percentage of malignancy was reported fractionally higher in postmenopausal (1.15%). Cases with atypical cytology (suspicious of malignancy) were three fold higher (0.72%) in postmenopausal women, reasons for these cytological features and findings are discussed.

We describe the cytologic features of three cases of cutaneous (scar)endometriosis in young women ranging from 20 to 40 years of age. All three cases presented as lower abdominal nodules associated with a previous caesarean section scar. The FNAC smears were cellular, consisting of epithelial and stromal fragments. The epithelial cells were arranged in sheets, with round to oval overlapping uniformly hyperchromatic nuclei. The stromal fragments consisted of loosely arranged spindle shaped cells along with scattered haemosiderin laden macrophages. Two of the three cases were confirmed subsequently oh histopathology. We therefore emphasize the role of FNAC in the diagnosis of cutaneous and subcutaneous endometriosis and in differentiating these lesions from focal fibrosis, desmoid tumours, primary and metastatic tumours.

Mediastinal Hodgkin's disease in young females is usually of the nodular sclerosing type. Pulmonary involvement is seen in 15-50%cases of Hodgkin's disease. It is possible to suggest a diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease in sputum by the presence of Reed-Sternberg cells. We report herewith a case of a 22-year-old female diagnosed bypost-bronchoscopy sputum cytology and confirmed by histopathology. A transthoracic fine needle aspiration biopsy proved inconclusive.

Cytological findings of an uncommon neuroendocrine (Merkel cell) carcinoma of skin is presented. The diagnosis was made on cytology and confirmed by histopathology. The distinct cytomorphological features are discussed in this report.

Aggressive fibromatosis is locally infiltrative fibroblastic proliferation akin to sarcomatous growth but lacking the capacity to metastasize. Here, we describe FNA cytological findings of aggressive fibromatosis of thigh in a 19 year old male which was initially interpreted as benign spindle cell lesion.