抄録
When determining the treatment plan for thyroid tumors, aspiration cytology is considered as an important test due to its high accuracy. However, surgery is often performed for cases with imaging findings suggestive of thyroid cancer, even if aspiration cytology clearly rules out malignancy. In the present study, we compared the relationship of the postoperative pathologic diagnosis with the preoperative ultrasound results to examine factors that are useful for differentiating between benign and malignant tumors. Our study included 97 patients diagnosed as having non-malignant tumors (Papanicolaou class I–III) by preoperative cytology, who underwent thyroidectomy during the 11-year period from January 2002 to December 2012. Subjects were divided according to the postoperative histopathology into the benign group (n=79) and the malignant group (n=18). The two groups were compared in terms of the maximum tumor diameter, preoperative serum thyroglobulin level, preoperative Papanicolaou classification, age, gender, and the ultrasound findings (presence/absence of border irregularity of the gland and presence/absence of microcalcifications). The preoperative cytological specimen adequacy rate was 94.9% (186 out of 196 specimens). In the benign group, thd preoperative cytology was class I in 12 patients, class II in 61 patients, and class III in 6 patients. In the malignant group, the cytology was class I in 1 patient, class II in 10 patients, and class III in 7 patients. The malignant group had significantly more class III cases and cases showing irregular borders of the gland on ultrasound.
In the future, abnormal findings other than those examined in the present study should also be examined in detail.
