Efficacy of ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration performed by surgeons newly trained in thyroid ultrasound.

Abstract

There are a growing number of thyroid ultrasound courses to train endocrinologists, pathologists, and surgeons to perform ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA). However, there are limited data to support the efficacy of ultrasound-guided FNA performed by nonradiologists. We compared the efficacy of ultrasound-guided FNA performed by surgeons newly trained in thyroid ultrasound with that of the same technique performed by 1 experienced radiologist. The ratio of nondiagnostic examinations was used to compare the 2 groups. A total of 197 ultrasound-guided FNAs were performed on 172 women (95.53%) and 8 men (4.47%) over a 12-month period. The efficacy of ultrasound-guided FNA did not differ between groups. A nondiagnostic report was found in 23% and 25.7% of the examinations performed by the radiologist and surgeons, respectively. The efficacy of ultrasound-guided FNAs performed by our 2 surgeons was similar to that of our radiologist. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 39: 439-442, 2017.