Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy of thyroid nodules is minimally invasive and safe. The clinical importance of the thyroid nodule evaluation is primarily related to the need to exclude thyroid cancer. We aimed to investigate the relationship between preoperative FNA cytology and results of thyroidectomy in this study.

Materials and Methods: Histopathologic examination reports of 302 patients undergoing thyroidectomy and preoperative FNA cytological reports of 125 patients were included in the study. The results of FNAs were classified as benign, suspicious, malignant and inadequate, postoperative histopathologic results were classified as benign or malignant. Suspicious and malignant cytology were evaluated in same group in terms of surgical indication. The results were compared in patients with and without preoperative FNA.

Results: FNA cytology results were found benign 55.2%, suspicious 19.2%, malignant 10.4% and inadequate 15.2%. After the removal inadequate group, malignant-suspicious and benign results were 34.9 and 65.1% respectively. Malign disease frequencies was 24.6 and 17.5% for patients with and without preoperative FNA. Benign and malignant disease rates were not statistically significant in both groups. Malignant disease was found 84.6% of patients with malignant cytology, those with suspicious in 37.5 and 8.7% of benign ones. Malignant disease rates was observed 54 and 17.5% as a result of suspicious/malignant cytology and without FNA patients respectively (P<0.01).

Conclusion: The main surgical indication of thyroid nodules is evidence or suspicion of malignancy. We concluded that preoperative FNA significantly reduced (82.5 and 46%) operations performed for benign disease, when patients with malign or suspicious cytology compared to without FNA group. We think that, FNA decreases the risk of unnecessary surgery when performed to determine the indications for thyroidectomy.