A 3-year audit of thyroid fine needle aspirates

The importance of using fine-needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules

Background

Thyroid nodules are common diseases, frequent in middle-aged women; only 5%–30% are malignant. Fine needle aspiration cytology is a simple, rapid and non invasive diagnostic test, performed to predict malignancy and avoid unnecessary surgery.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of fine needle aspiration in the management of thyroid lesions.

Materials and methods

Our study was retrospective, including all cases of thyroid fine needle aspiration between January 2010 and December 2017, which were verified by microscopic examination, Data was obtained from the files of Pathology and ENT Department of Farhat Hached Hospital of Sousse and from nuclear medicine department of Sahloul Hospital of Sousse, Tunisia.

Results

A total of 58 cases were studied, the main age was 40 ± 15,57 years and the sex ratio was 0.03 with female predominance. Concordance between fine needle aspiration and histology was seen in 45 cases. The sensitivity was 60% and the specificity was 100%. The negative and positive predictive values were 100 and 92%, respectively. The concordance index Kappa was of 0.67.

Conclusion

Thyroid fine needle aspiration in experienced hands is an easily performed diagnostic procedure with very little associated risk. It should be performed in suspect nodules for treatment stratification.

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The thyroid nodules are a frequent disease.

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We present a serie case of 58 thyroid nodules to enhance the importance of using of fine needle cytology to predict malignancy and avoid unnecessary surgery.

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We describe clinical, gross and microscopic examinations for diagnosis and treatment.

Diagnostic terminology and morphologic criteria for cytologic diagnosis of thyroid lesions: a synopsis of the National Cancer Institute Thyroid Fine-Needle Aspiration State of the Science Conference

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) sponsored the NCI Thyroid Fine-needle Aspiration (FNA) State of the Science Conference on October 22-23, 2007 in Bethesda, MD. The two-day meeting was accompanied by a permanent informational website and several on-line discussion periods between May 1 and December 15, 2007 (http://thyroidfna.cancer.gov). This document summarizes matters regarding diagnostic terminology/classification scheme for thyroid FNA interpretation and cytomorphologic criteria for the diagnosis of various benign and malignant thyroid lesions. (http://thyroidfna.cancer.gov/pages/info/agenda/).

Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsies of the Head and Neck: The Surgical Pathologist's Perspective

Masses of the head and neck comprise a variety of benign and malignant tumors and tumor-like conditions, which may present diagnostic challenges to the surgical pathologist and surgeon. Fine needle aspiration cytology is an increasingly popular technique in the initial evaluation of such lesions. The high diagnostic accuracy of this technique makes it generally preferable to traditional surgical biopsy. It is particularly useful in the sampling of histologically uniform neoplasms of the salivary glands, identification of classical papillary carcinoma and medullary carcinoma of the thyroid, separation of colloid goiter from follicular neoplasms, and confirmation of clinically suspicious lymph node metastases in cases with already documented malignant diseases. Despite its usefulness, aspiration cytology of head and neck lesions has certain inherent pitfalls, and these are briefly examined in this review. Int J Surg Pathol 8(1):17-28, 2000