The role of fine needle aspiration cytology in medical-surgical missions

To relate a 6-year, short-term experience of utilizing fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) during medical-surgical missions in the impoverished areas of the Philippines.

FNAC is a simple, accurate, fast and economical procedure and requires the simplest devices to implement. During medical-surgical missions to the poorest areas in the Third World countries, where there is almost complete lack of tissue processing and frozen section evaluation, and scarcity of laboratory testing, FNAC becomes a practical technique to use. FNAC in these situations plays an important role as an alternative diagnostic modality to surgery.

Our week-long mission experience for 6 different years of successful application of FNAC is described.

While the mission volunteers have gained extremely rewarding experience in these limited mission works, FNAC has proven to be a very useful adjunct in the delivery of short-term health care during medical-surgical treatment even in a less-than-ideal setting.