Aim: To determine the frequency of different diseases resulting in cervical lymphadenopathy in specimens of patients presenting in tertiary care hospital.

Methodology: It was a cross sectional study conducted at the histopathology section of the pathology department of Services Institute of Medical Sciences/Services Hospital Lahore. The study was approved by the ethical committee of the institution. The study was completed in six months.100 cases fulfilling the inclusion criteria were registered. Inclusion criteria included patients above 16 years of age, patients from both sexes, unilateral or bilateral irrespective of duration. Lymph nodes less than 1cm were not included in the study. Informed consent was taken. Both FNAC and Biopsy were used as diagnostic tools. All the data was analysed with SPSS version 11.

Results: During a period of six months, a total of 100 cases of cervical lymphadenopathy were studied. These included 75 benign and 25 malignant cases. Out of benign cases 53% were diagnosed as tuberculous lymphadenitis. About 81.3% were in the age range of 16-25 years and 18.7% were in the age range of 26-35 years. 22% cases were diagnosed as reactive lymphadenitis. About 54.54% of these patients were in the age range of 16-25 years and 45.46% were in the age range of 26-35 years. The highest frequency among malignant lesions consisted of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma 16% followed by Hodgkin lymphoma 5% and metastatic disease 4%.The age range of malignant lesions was in the range of 36-78 years.

Conclusion: Our study concludes that cervical lymphadenopathy is the common clinical presentation in our setup and tuberculosis is the commonest cause.

Keywords: Hodgkin lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Fine needle aspiration cytology