Role Of Fine Needle Aspiration In Diagnosing Soft Tissue Tumors : Utility, limitations, efficacy and cytological features

Soft tissue tumors have been considered to pose some of the greatest diagnostic challenges in surgical pathology. According to the latest WHO classification, more than 100 benign subtypes, over 50 variants of sarcoma and a number of 'border-line' entities have been described for them. Fine needle aspiration cytology has many advantages that make it a first-choice diagnostic approach in many tumors. However, its use in diagnosing soft tissue tumors has been debated and at times discouraged. The study should help shed some light on the role of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosing soft tissue tumors and to explain the utility and limitations of fine needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis of soft tissue tumors, the cytological features of the most commonly encountered soft tissue tumors, the role of fine needle aspiration cytology in differentiating benign soft tissue tumors from soft tissue sarcomas and its role in grading and in grading and subtyping of soft tissue sarcomas.