Value Of Ultrasound-guided Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy In The Differential Diagnosis Of Thyroid Nodules

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of anultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy (US-FNAB) for the differentialdiagnosis and treatment planning of thyroid nodules.Methods: One hundred and twenty one patients underwent US- FNAB for 149nodules. Sixty-five patients underwent surgery, and 84 were followed up closely. Theresults of the US- FNAB correlated with the pathological findings and clinicalfollow-up results.Results: The nodules ranged from 0.3cm to 2.3cm in diameter, with a mean of0.9cm. Among 149 nodules, 115 were infracentimetric and 34 were supracentimetricin diameter. Of the 149 thyroid nodules, US- FNAB was true positive in 43,trunegative in 90, false positive in 7 and false negative in 1. In 8 nodules, the lesion wasinadequately sampled. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negativepredictive value and accuracy of the US- FNAB for the infracentirnetric nodules were96.9％, 93.4％, 86.1％, 98.6％和94.4％, and for supracentimetric nodules were 100％,90.5％, 85.7％, 100％和93.9％, respectively. There were no significant differences inthe results between the infracentimetric and supracentimetric nodules.Conclusion: Ultrasound-guided FNAB is a useful technique for differentialdiagnosis and determining the treatment plan thyroid nodules diagnosis.