Diagnostic value of intraoperative fine-needle aspiration cytologic diagnosis versus frozen section-based histopathologic diagnosis in thoracic malignancies: A single institution's experience.

Our findings confirm FS is the gold standard for intraoperative diagnosis. FNA cytology may be useful as a non-invasive, inexpensive initial diagnostic tool intraoperatively, given the similar specificity (99% FNA, 99% FS) and accuracy (92% FNA, 97% FS). Negative FNA could be followed by the costlier and invasive FS. We encourage surgeons to utilize intraoperative FNA first.