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Background The American Thyroid Association (ATA) recommends using ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) in order to evaluate supracentimetric and suspect thyroid nodules. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effective use of FNA before surgery for nodules over 3 cm in diameter. Methods In this retrospective study, we analyzed the results of ultrasound-guided FNA and postoperative histological analysis in 843 nodules >3 cm. Results The FNA was informative in 42.6%. The correlation with the final histological analysis was 94.8% for benign nodules and 71.0% for malignant nodules. The FNA had a positive predictive value of 71%, a specificity of 97%, a sensitivity of 56%, and a 4.7% rate of false-negative results. Conclusion Because there is a nonnegligible FNA risk of error, notably allowing the evolution of a cancer in 1 of 20 cases, the FNA data should not delay surgical intervention for potentially suspect nodules >3 cm in diameter. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 39: 32–36, 2017

The American Thyroid Association (ATA) recommends using ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) in order to evaluate supracentimetric and suspect thyroid nodules. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effective use of FNA before surgery for nodules over 3 cm in diameter.In this retrospective study, we analyzed the results of ultrasound-guided FNA and postoperative histological analysis in 843 nodules3 cm.The FNA was informative in 42.6%. The correlation with the final histological analysis was 94.8% for benign nodules and 71.0% for malignant nodules. The FNA had a positive predictive value of 71%, a specificity of 97%, a sensitivity of 56%, and a 4.7% rate of false-negative results.Because there is a nonnegligible FNA risk of error, notably allowing the evolution of a cancer in 1 of 20 cases, the FNA data should not delay surgical intervention for potentially suspect nodules3 cm in diameter. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 39: 32-36, 2017.

The presence of a metastatic papillary carcinoma in the neck is presumptive evidence of a primary thyroid neoplasm since neck metastases of other primary tumors are uncommon. Immunohistochemical studies may be required to diagnose these metastases. We report 2 cases in which an unrelated tumor mimicked a thyroid malignancy. Both patients had been referred for evaluation of enlarged lymph neck nodes without any other symptoms. In both cases, a lymph node biopsy identified a metastatic papillary adenocarcinoma that was believed to be consistent with a thyroid primary. Thyroidectomy was not performed in either case. Further investigations led to the diagnosis of other primary tumors that were unrelated to the thyroid; the unrelated primaries were an ovarian serous tumor in one patient and a papillary renal cell carcinoma in the other.