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Role of fine needle aspiration biopsy in the management of thyroid nodules
1Department of Surgery 37, King Khalid University Hospital, P.O. Box 7805, Riyadh 11472, Saudi Arabia.
Objective:
To evaluate the degree of utilisation, the accuracy and the effect of fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) in patients with nodular thyroid lesions.
Design:
Cross-sectional study.
Setting:
King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Subjects:
Four hundred and twenty eight patients with thyroid lesions who were treated surgically were reviewed. The FNAB of 201 patients were compared with the post-operative histopathological findings.
Results:
Most of the patients (69%) presented with nodular thyroid disease (solitary and multinodular) and among this group 31.4% did not undergo FNAB pre-operatively. In more than 76%, the FNAB resulted in a definite cytologic diagnosis. A sensitivity of 71.4% and a specificity of 96.4% was achieved.
Conclusion:
If FNAB were used routinely in the initial evaluation of patients with thyroid nodules it could have an enormous effect on their management. It reduces the number of patients going for thyroidectomy and eliminates the need for nuclear scans to screen patients with thyroid nodules. Therefore, we recommend FNAB to be part of the initial evaluation of all patients with nodular thyroid disease.
