Background: Ever since the documentation of functions of lymph nodes, the diseases of lymph nodes are understood in a better way. Varied number of disorders, ranging from trivial inflammatory conditions to serious malignant conditions affect lymph nodes. Cervical lymphadenopathy also forms the commonest cause of neck swellings. Cervical lymphadenopathy is the commonest region for specific lymphadenopathy. With this background, we have conducted a study on cervical lymphadenopathy in our institute to find out the various causes of cervical lymphadenopathy in our area.

Methods: The present study is a prospective, observational study conducted on fifty patients who attended to Government General Hospital/RIMS, Kadapa during a period of 2 years from January 2016 to December 2017. All the patient who presented with cervical lymphadenopathy were included in the study. A detailed history of the symptoms, thorough clinical examination and investigations were done, which were analyzed.

Results: Benign lymphadenopathy was the commonest cause of cervical lymphadenopathy accounting for 78% of all the cases. Tuberculous lymphadenitis was commonest cause of benign cervical lymphadenopathy accounting for 48% of benign causes and 38% of total cases. Primary tumours of lymph nodes constituted 14% and metastatic lymphadenopathy was the cause in 8% of the total cases.

Conclusion: Tuberculosis continues to be the commonest cause of cervical lymphadenopathy in our setup, the common age of presentation being in 2nd and 3rd decades. Secondaries in the neck occur in elderly age group. Provisional diagnosis of tubercular adenitis did not closely correlate with histopathological diagnosis. Clinical diagnosis of secondaries neck was closely associated with fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) report. FNAC is safe, quick and cost-effective procedure and has high patient acceptance. It is a good screening procedure for tuberculous lymphadenitis and secondaries of the neck.

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Dr N. Prahalada Reddy

Post Graduate, GMC & GH, Kadapa