The role of fine-needle aspiration biopsy in the rapid diagnosis and management of thyroid neoplasm.

This report describes our 5-year experience with fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy of the thyroid in a 560-bed teaching hospital. Three hundred nine FNA biopsies were performed primarily by one endocrinologist and interpreted by several pathologists. Analysis of the data reveals the sensitivity of the procedure is 93%, specificity is 95.1%, and the positive and negative predictive values are 88.9% and 96.5%, respectively. This data confirms the diagnostic accuracy of FNA biopsy. Complications were seen in 6 of 309 cases (1.9%) and were relatively mild. Nearly 75% of the cases in the series were cytologically diagnosed as nonneoplastic. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy identified 19.4% of the cases needing surgery, of which 72% had neoplastic nodules, confirming the selection role of the procedure. The management of thyroid nodules is discussed and a selective review of the FNA literature is presented. The authors believe that our experience rebuts the argument that special referral centers are needed to interpret the cytologic material. Several well trained surgical pathologists can become proficient in interpreting the FNA biopsies without significant loss in accuracy, and thereby render a definite diagnosis in the vast majority of the cases. Accordingly, the authors recommend FNA of the thyroid as the initial diagnostic test in the evaluation of thyroid nodules.