Background: Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) is one of the methods of early detection used in the diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules. This study aimed to determine the accuracy of FNA in evaluating thyroid nodules to assess the ability of FNA in detecting malignancies of the thyroid gland and to evaluate the role of FNA in the reduction of unnecessary surgeries for the patients with a thyroid nodule.
Methodology: Using an observational analytic retrospective cohort study, a sample of 154 study participants diagnosed with at least one of the thyroid nodules was considered. All the subjects had undergone thyroidectomy between the period of January 1, 2016 and January 1, 2018.
Results: Part of the main results indicated that the accuracy of FNA was 88.6% in diagnosing the Follicular Carcinoma and 90.8% in diagnosing Follicular Adenoma. FNA's overall sensitivity was found to be 91.2%, while the specificity was found at 71.65%. Previous studies placed FNA sensitivity between 89% and 90%.
Conclusion: The data from the current study have shown different results from the previous studies on the specificity of FNA in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules, as they had shown that it was less accurate. Our study found FNA cytology as an accurate method. Still, it has some limitations, or it needs proper sittings (i.e., welltrained interventional radiologist, on-spot histopathologist). We recommend increasing the training among the team players in the endocrine surgery unit.
Key words: Thyroid nodule, FNA, thyroidectomy
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