La punción con aguja fina: Método de estudio diagnóstico en nódulos de la glándula tiroides

OBJECTIVE: Fine needle aspiration is an ideal and the low cost method to study thyroid nodules. Reviewing the literature, the methods sensibility is already between 65 % and 98 %; and has a false negative rates range from 1.3 % to 11.7 % and the prevalence of thyroid nodules in the general population is of 4 % to 6 %. METHOD: We reviewed and evaluated 395 cases of thyroid fine needle aspiration performed during the year 2004. Only 219 cases procedures were performed at the department of cytology of the Institute Anatomopathological "Dr. Jose Antonio O'Daly", and 176 cases of them were from other medical centers. RESULTS: The most common symptoms available on the fine needle aspiration request were: Palpitations, palpable neck mass, dysphasia to solids, and complex ultrasound nodules. The female gender (89.9 %) was the most affected, with an average age of 46 years. Sixty-two percent (62 %) of 245 lesions were benign, with a predominantly hyperplasic nodules; the 15.4 % (61) were malignant lesions, and a total of 20 (5.1 %) were papillary carcinomas. We were able to review 38 total or partial thyroidectomies and correlated the fine needle aspiration biopsy results in 30 cases; of these fine needles aspiration reported 92.3 % sensibility, 88.2 % specificity with a positive predictive value of 85.7 % and 7.7 % false negatives. CONCLUSION: We demonstrate that fine needle aspiration is another available and reliable method to evaluate thyroid nodules.