Clinical audit of repeat fine needle aspiration in a general cytopathology service

BACKGROUND: The few studies on repeat aspiration focussed on accuracy of diagnosis following repeat. Numbers and documented reasons for repeat remain unaddressed. AIM: To study factors associated with requests for repeat fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC). SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Metropolitan hospital, clinical audit. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Audit of 5104 FNAC in 10 months. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Univariate, and multivariate binary logistic regression. RESULTS: Seven hundred and six patients (13.8%) were advised repeat aspirates. Three hundred and twelve of these were actually repeated (44.1%). Carryover of actually repeated aspirates to subsequent months averaged 10.8 (34.2%). Maximum numbers of repeat requests were from thyroid 76/415 (18.3%), followed by lymph node 310/1856 (16.7%), and from breast 86/716 (12.0%). Outcome of actually repeated aspirates were: Diagnostic 181/312 (58.0%), and non-diagnostic 131/312 (41.9%). Reasons for repeat were inadequate aspirates 370/706 (52.4%), non-diagnostic descriptive reports 309/706 (43.7%); in 27/706 (3.8%), no reason was mentioned. CONCLUSIONS: Inadequate aspirates, non-diagnostic descriptive reports, and FNAC/FNAB from thyroid, lymph nodes, and breast contribute to repeats. We suggest steps to reduce the number of repeat aspirates to eliminate extra work.