Validity of clinical, radiological and pathological tests of thyroid swellings, a descriptive cross-sectional study.

Background: Thyroid diseases bear a high burden in India. Thyroid enlargement needs further evaluation to rule out the neoplasm. With existing different evaluation tests, eliciting their validity would help in further management of thyroid swellings. Objective: To assess the clinical and pathological correlation of thyroid swellings. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted among fifty patients who presented with thyroid swellings to surgery department and Otolaryngology department, in a tertiary care hospital for a period of 21 months. The data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire and all the patients were subjected to clinical examination, blood investigations, USG neck and fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and histo-pathological examination. Results of each were evaluated against histo-pathological examination. Results: The mean age of the study subjects was 39.7±10.8 years. Multinodular goitre was the commonest thyroid swelling detected clinically (66.0%), on USG (36.0%) and histopathplogical examination (40.0%). However, FNAC showed colloid nodular goitre as the commonest (40.0%). Among the clinical examination, USG and FNAC, USG showed significant moderate agreement (κ=0.59, P<0.05)and FNAC showed significant perfect agreement (κ=0.91, P<0.05) with 88.2% sensitivity, 100.0%, specificity and positive predictive value 94.3% negative predictive value and 96.0% accuracy (P<0.05). Conclusion:FNAC is a good tool to evaluate thyroid swellings for malignancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]