Clinical, cytological and histopathological spectrum of pediatric lesions with emphasis on pediatric tumors

Abstract

To study the clinical, cyto morphological features of all pediatric lesions and categorize them as inflammatory, benign and malignant lesions and to correlate with histopathological diagnosis, wherever possible. Materials and Methods: All lesions in pediatric age group (0-14years) during a period of three years (2016-18) and total of 369 cases are detected clinically or under radiological guidance were included. Results: Out of 2911 fine needle aspirations during the study period, 369 were aspirations in children of pediatric age group, constituting 12.67% of all aspirations. Repeat aspirations were done in 4 cases, of which 3 cases were from different organs at same time and in one case 2 aspirations were done in 2 month follow up period. Majority of lesions were inflammatory lesions comprising 74.52% (275) of all lesions, followed by neoplastic lesions (12.19%). Nonspecific inflammatory lesions were more common (63.63%) than specific inflammatory lesions (36.36%). Neoplasms comprised 12.19% (45) cases, and about two third of them were benign lesions (60%). Overall, benign lesions constituted 7.31% of all lesions and malignant lneoplasms 4.87%. Highest incidence was seen in 12 th year comprising 15.71% (58 lesions). Conclusion: FNAC is a rapid, easy, simple, minimally invasive technique well accepted in the adult population and also in pediatric age group. However with diagnostic accuracy of 91.30% in the present study as well as in previous studies, FNAC can be a reliable first line investigation in children. From this study it was clear that there is more widespread utilization of FNAC in children especially in enlarged cervical lymph nodes.

A Study of Cytomorphological Spectrum of Head and Neck Lesions in Pediatric Age Group

“…[ 2 ] The mass lesions in children can be of infective, reactive, cystic, developmental aberrations, or neoplastic in origin. [ 8 ] FNAC being a minimally invasive and cost-effective technique, it is being gaining acceptance in pediatric population.…”

“…[ 2 ] FNAC helps in triaging the mass lesions based on cytomorphological features, so that the patients can be treated or further investigations can be sought. [ 8 ]…”

“…This was seen in concordance with other studies of Mulimani S et al . [ 8 ] and Maheshwari V et al . [ 19 ]…”

“…[ 7 ] Also, FNAC has shown excellent results with sensitivity and specificity approaching up to 93% to 100% in pediatric patients, similar to its value in work-up of mass lesions in adult population. [ 8 ] Here, we study the cytomorphological spectrum and the utility of FNAC in pediatric head and neck lesions.…”