Fine-needle aspiration biopsy of the thyroid correlated with clinical scintigraphic, echographic and pathologic data...

In order to make thyroid aspiration biopsy, a routine diagnostic and therapeutic procedure in the "C. I. Parhon" Institute of Endocrinology, the authors carried out a study on 100 patients with nodular or diffuse goiter. The results were corroborated by clinical, scintigraphic and echographic data. The cytologic diagnosis was compared with the histopathologic one in 50 operated cases and confirmed by the post-therapeutic clinical course in the remaining 50. The study of the cases classified as benign (83%), suspect (6%) and malignant lesions (11%) was made for each individual diagnosis, taking into account the specific clinical, scintigraphic, echographic, and cytologic aspects. The cytology of cold nodules showed that only 30% of the patients required surgery, the rest of them having benign lesions that benefited from puncture and drug therapy. The cytohistologic concordance in malignant tumors was 93.3% (73.3% for certain, 20% with suspicion). The proportion of false negative diagnoses was 6.6% (one case). None of the findings was falsely positive. The advantages of this procedure are discussed.