Diagnostic Value of Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy in Soft Tissue Tumors

Abstract

The use of fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) for the diagnosis of soft tissue tumors was evaluated in 58 cases. Cytologic materials were evaluated In three steps: In the first step, the soft tissue lesion aspirates were classified according only to their cytomorphology into six groups; second step was to group the cases into benign, malignant and borderline categories by utilizing clinical signs and other parameters in addition to morphology. In the last step, after forming the differential diagnostic spectrum for subgroups, a specific diagnosis was made for each individual case. Twenty-five cases (43.1%) were malignant, 32 cases (35.1%) were benign and 1 case (1.7%) was borderline. There were three false-positive and two false-negative diagnoses. Thirty-one cases (53.4%) were given specific diagnoses. The sensitivity was 95.5% and specificity was 90.9%. Difficulties were experienced in the correct assesment of aspirates from low grade malignancies, especially when material was hypocellular. The other area of diagnostic difficulty was interpretation of round and pleomorfic cell tumors; while most of those could easily be classified as malignant or benign, exact histologic categorization was often difficult. Finally it was concluded that evaluation of soft tissue tumors by FNAB must be made with full knowledge of clinical and radiological findings and with an awarenes of the limitations of the cytologic diagnosis In soft tissue tumors.