Ultrasound-guided, histological, fine-needle biopsy from suspect parathyroid tumours: success-rate and reliability of histological diagnosis.

Ultrasound-guided, fine-needle tissue biopsies were performed in 60 suspected parathyroid tumours in 55 consecutive patients with biochemically proven hyperparathyroidism. The specimens were randomly arranged and re-read "blind" by two pathologists. The interobserver agreement, corrected for chance agreement, was 0.92 (= kappa coefficient). Twenty-three of the 60 suspect parathyroid tumours were verified histologically following surgery. No diagnostic errors were seen but the percentage of insufficient biopsies from suspect parathyroid tumours or surgically verified parathyroid tumours was high (45 and 47%, respectively). We conclude that a reliable tissue diagnosis can be made by ultrasound-guided, fine-needle tissue biopsy. However, when the material is insufficient for histological diagnosis, we recommend the additional use of ultrasound-guided, fine-needle aspiration for cytology or parathyroid hormone determination.