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Histologic follow‐up of nondiagnostic thyroid fine needle aspirations: Implications for adequacy criteria
Author(s) -
Renshaw Andrew A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
diagnostic cytopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1097-0339
pISSN - 8755-1039
DOI - 10.1002/dc.21492
Subject(s) - medicine , follicular phase , thyroid , pathology , radiology , nuclear medicine
There is limited histologic follow‐up for adequacy criteria in thyroid fine needle aspirations. We correlated the number of benign follicular cells in nondiagnostic aspirates (excluding atypical and Hurthle cells) and the results of histologic follow‐up. A total of 170 cases with only benign follicular cells were reviewed. The sensitivity and specificity for 60 benign follicular cells was 97% and 42%. If the threshold for adequacy was lowered to 10 cells, the specificity of a benign diagnosis increased significantly (42% to 50%, P < 0.001) without a significant change in sensitivity (97% to 96%, P = 0.45). An additional 63 cases were diagnosed as adequate with three false negative cases. Lowering the threshold to 30 cells had no change in sensitivity (97%), increased specificity to 45% but this was not significant (P = 0.08). An additional 26 aspirates could be diagnosed as adequate without any false negative cases. Histologic follow‐up suggests that the current criteria for adequacy can be lowered to improve specificity while retaining excellent sensitivity. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2012;40:E13–E15. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.