Repeat Fine Needle Biopsy for Nondiagnostic Thyroid Nodules with Short Interval Does Not Increase Atypical Cytologic Result.

초록

PURPOSE : To evaluate which factors affected atypia with undetermined significance (AUS) results of thyroid nodules with initial nondiagnostic (ND) result and to determine whether repeat fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) with short interval increases AUS result. MATERIALS AND METHOD : A retrospective review of 128 nodules from 126 patients with initial ND results was performed from January 2009 to December 2012. Demographic and clinical factors; age, sex, and time interval of FNAB, and ultrasonographic factors; size, location, consistency, suspicious malignant finding and thyroiditis were recorded. Time interval was subdivided into < or ≥ 5, 10, 15, and 20 weeks after initial FNAB. Their effects on AUS result were analyzed using Fisher’s exact test and Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS : None of the demographic, clinical, and ultrasonographic variables was significantly related with AUS result of repeat FNAB. Time interval of repeat FNAB was not related with AUS result (p=0.63, 0.57, 0.23, 0.48 for 5, 10, 15, 20 weeks, respectively). CONCLUSION : Timing of repeat FNAB for the ND nodules did not influence the AUS result of repeat FNAB, and other clinical and US characters were not correlated with AUS result. Repeat FNAB for ND nodules could be performed without waiting for 3 months following to the need of patients and referring clinicians.