An Investigation of the Histopathological Pattern of Thyroid in Patients Undergoing Thyroid Operations: A Cross-Sectional Study

Saleh Al-wageeh,1 Faisal Ahmed,2 Hossein-Ali Nikbakht,3 Ebrahim Al-shami,2 Mohammad Reza Askarpour,4 Umayir Chowdhury5 1Department of General Surgery, Ibb University of Medical Science, Ibb, Yemen; 2Urology Research Center, Al-Thora General Hospital, Department of Urology, Ibb University of Medical Science, Ibb, Yemen; 3Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran; 4Department of Urology, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; 5School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, IranCorrespondence: Faisal Ahmed Tel +967776089579Email fmaaa2006@yahoo.comBackground: Thyroid diseases are major health problems in our society, which are manifested by alteration in hormone secretion, enlargement of the thyroid gland, or both. This study was designed to determine thyroid histopathological patterns in patients who underwent thyroid operation.Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was carried out at Sana’a University Hospital over two years, from January 1, 2014, to December 30, 2015. All 260 patients who underwent thyroid surgery were included in this study. Factors such as age, sex, residency, fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) result, and post-operative histopathological patterns were recorded. Patients who only underwent FNA were excluded.Results: The mean age of participants was 40.06± 13.18 years. Females were most commonly affected by thyroid diseases (90%) in comparison to males (10%). Histopathologic patterns were nodular colloid goiter (63.1%), adenoma (4.6%), papillary thyroid neoplasms (20.4%), follicular thyroid carcinoma (3.8%), medullary thyroid carcinoma (1.9%), thyroiditis (5.4%) and anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (0.8%). Papillary thyroid cancer was the most common thyroid cancer, with a prevalence of 53 (20.4%). The accuracy of FNAB and final histopathology in combine was 88.07%. However, FNAB was not precise enough in the pre-operative diagnosis of follicular carcinoma (40%). FNAB sensitivity ranged from 70.8% to 88.8%, while FNAB specificity ranged from 97.1% to 99.9%.Conclusion: Nodular colloid goiter is the most prevalent thyroid disease, while papillary thyroid carcinoma is the most frequent cancer seen in this study. We recommend further studies with a larger population to validate our study.Keywords: goiter, histopathology, papillary carcinoma, thyroidectomy