Needle aspiration biopsy in diagnostics of thyroid nodules

In this article results of thick needle aspiration biopsy of thyroid nodules done in 5463 patients are presented. In 4450 (58 %) cases according to the given cytological diagnosis benign forms of thyroid pathology were found. 212 (4 %) cases had cytological presentations of malignancy while in 428 (8 %) cases cytological diagnosis could not rule out presence of malignancy. In 373 (7 %) cases results of primary puncture biopsy were non-informative. 761 patients underwent operative treatment. Comparing the received cytological and histological investigations, the following results were obtained: sensitivity 81,4, specificity 83,6, false positive 6,6 and false negative 16,3.