Thyroid fine needle aspiration cytology

―The aspiration and smearing technique―

Abstract

As fine needle aspiration (FNA) is a simple, accurate, fast, and economical diagnostic tool, it is widely used for the diagnosis of thyroid nodules. To obtain high diagnostic accuracy, FNA should be performed by persons with adequate training and experience. I have performed FNA for approximately 3000 thyroid nodules annually. Here, I present the aspiration and smearing techniques for thyroid nodules based on my experience. I conclude that cytopathologists can produce high-quality FNA materials because they can directly correlate the FNA techniques with the microscopic findings. I hope that this article serves as a trigger for cytopathologists to start performing FNA.