Palpable masses in the head and neck region can arise from various structures, such as lymph node, thyroid gland, major and minor salivary glands, soft tissues, blood vessels, and neural structures. Fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a simple, quick, inexpensive first-line method to evaluate such swellings and thus confirm the diagnosis. This study correlates aspiration cytology as an indispensable tool in diagnosing various head and neck swellings and their prevalence with respect to age, sex, site of origin, and nature of those masses.

This study was done from January 2007 to December 2013 in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Department of Pathology. All the patients presenting with various head and neck swellings underwent FNAC, and the results were correlated with anatomical sites and frequency of occurrence and categorized into various clinicopathological groups.

This study included 1,272 cases who were evaluated by FNAC for head and neck swellings. In this study, 32 patients presented with frank abscesses, 36 cases with submandibular region swellings, seven cases with submental swellings, 70 cases with various swellings in the neck and postauricular area, 47 cases with various facial and scalp swellings, two cases from oral cavity, 74 cases with parotid masses, 680 cases with lymphadenopathy, and 324 cases with thyroid lesions.

Fine needle aspiration cytology is a useful, reliable, cost-effective, and valuable diagnostic tool for the initial evaluation and diagnostic categorization of all superficial and deep-seated lesions in the head and neck region as it is a fairly sensitive and specific procedure in addition to being simple, rapid, accurate, and without any significant complications and above all without affecting the underlying tissue morphology altogether

Pandey AK, Bhardwaj A, Maithani T, Kishore S, Singh VP. Distributive Analysis of Head and Neck Swellings with Their Cytopathological Correlation. Int J Otorhinolaryngol Clin 2016;8(3):89-96.