THYROID NODULE. CITOHISTOPATHOLOGIC CORRELATION

Abstract

Objective: to correlate the findings of fine needle aspiration (FNA) and histopathologic outcome of definitive biopsy in patients with thyroid nodules who were treated at the Hospital General del Este "Dr. Domingo Luciani" between January 2007 and April 2011. Methods: the records of 60 patients who underwent surgery for thyroid nodules, which also underwent FNA of the nodule on the preoperative, frozen section and final biopsy, were reviewed. Results: 53 of 60 studied patients were female, 50% of FNA were negative for malignancy, 40% indeterminate,
6.7% insufficient, 3.3% positive. The frozen section shown 51.7% benign, 40% had no frozen section, 5% malignant, 3.3% the result was deferred. Definitive biopsy reported benign in 86.7% of cases. A sensitivity of 33.3% was found for FNA with 100% specificity, while frozen section shown a 100% sensitivity and specificity. Conclusion: the thyroid nodule is a disease mostly prevalent in females, but represents a higher risk of malignancy in males; PAAF most be included in the thyroid nodules study, which despite having 33.3% sensitivity in this study, lets define the treating physician behavior; the frozen section in patients with negative cytology for malignancy should not be excluded nor the ones with indeterminate result.