Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) is a simple, the most cost-effective, less invasive and a commonly used diagnostic tool for evaluating thyroid nodules. Recent times a tech-nique called fine-needle sampling non-aspiration (FNNA) or fine-needle capillary thyroid biopsies (FNC) has been more preferred. This technique prevents the use of suction so there is no aspiration crush and there-fore nondiagnostic outcomes are reduced. The aim of this prospective study was to compare the FNA and FNNA with reference to diagnostic adequacy and diagnostic to according Bethesda system.

Materials and methods: Ultrasonography-guided FNA and FNNA biopsy were performed successively on 100 nodules. Both the techniques were done at the same nodules and assessed by the same pathologist, beginning with the first (FNA) on half of the patients (randomly selected) and vice versa. The pathologist was unaware of the sampling method employed (FNA/FNNA) for any particular set of slides to avoid individual bias. The final cytopathologic finding was reported by using the Bethesda criteria, in which a sample is considered adequate if it contains a minimum of six groups of well observed follicular cells, with at least ten cells per group.

Results: During this study interval, FNA and FNNA were performed on 100 thyroid nodules in 78 women and 21 men (age range, 19–75 years). The sizes of the thyroid nodules biopsied ranged from 6 to 59 mm in mean diameter. A significant difference between FNA and FNNA examination was found on inadequate results (42% vs 22%, P=0.02). There was no significant difference nodule characteristics included echogenicity, sonographic criteria, calcification and nodule size between the two techniques.

Conclusion: FNNA technique is easier to perform with better patient compliance. Our study adds a further suggestion to prefer FNNA for reduce nondiagnostic results.