IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences

ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320-7876

Cytomorphological Study of Lymph Node Lesions in a Tertiary Care Centre

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Summi Ganguli , Malay Bajpai , Swati Singh , Prem Kumar Garg , Abhishek Pathre , Mayurika S Tyagi

Abstract

Introduction: One of the most frequent clinical manifestations of patients visiting the outpatient department is lymphadenopathy. The intensity of the response and the triggering event both affect the pattern and degree of morphological alterations. An essential step in making a diagnosis of various lymph node lesions is “fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC)”. It is a widely accepted, accurate, sensitive, and specific test used in an outpatient setting. Materials and Methods: An observational study was carried out at the Department of Pathology of a tertiary care hospital in North India from July 2019 to February 2020. A total of 100 lymphadenopathy cases were taken. Smears were stained with Giemsa and categorized according to the cytomorphological pattern. “Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) stain was done in clinically suspicious cases of tuberculosis”. “Data regarding brief history, site, age, and cytomorphologic features were collected and analyzed”. Results: Out of 100 cases of lymph node aspirations, 70 cases showed features of Tubercular Lymphadenitis followed by Reactive Lymphadenitis, 29 cases while 1 malignancy. Tuberculosis was prevalent in all age groups. Conclusion: Lymph node FNAC is a simple, cost-effective investigation with great importance in view of high prevalence of tuberculosis in our country, where an atypical presentation of tuberculosis can be screened. Purulent aspirate smears which do not show typical features of tuberculosis can be dismissed as acute suppurative lymphadenitis in the absence of ZN staining. AFB Positivity in such cases confirms the diagnosis and helps in better patient management.

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