[Frozen section examination in thyroid pathology. Technique and effective indications]

Frozen section examination for intraoperative diagnosis is often difficult in thyroid pathology. Fine-needle aspiration is widely used in the patients selection for surgery. Such a selection is accompanied by an increase in difficult frozen section cases, whose diagnosis is often differed to permanent sections. Thus, frozen section sensitivity is relatively low. In the era of cost containment, an increasing number of authors suggest that frozen section examination is unnecessary, and that surgical planning could rely on preoperative cytology only. Others consider fine-needle aspiration cytological evaluation and frozen section examination as complementary tools and recommend their association. The authors describe the technical aspects and difficulties of frozen section examination in thyroid pathology, and discuss its interest in surgical planning, in the light of preoperative cytology. Each team has to estimate local thyroid cytology development and accuracy, to define new indications for frozen section examination in thyroid pathology, according to local therapeutic choices. Such an approach could consistently reduce the number of intraoperative consultation for thyroid pathology, without prejudice for the patients.