Muhammad Parvez, Asad Mahmood Malik, Adnan Anwar.
Solitary thyroid nodules: Incidence of thyroid cancers.
Pak J Pathol Jan ;12(4):25-9.

A prospective study was carried out from September 1995 to September 2000 (five years) in CMH Quetta and CMH Rawalpindi. A total of 46 patients were included in the study, 17 were male (36.96%) and, 29 female (63.04%) with a male to female ratio of 1:1.7. Their ages varied from 18 years to 65 years with mean age of 39 years. All the 46 patients were subjected to FNAC, 38 patients (82.60%) were with benign aspirate, 2 with suspicious (4.35%). 4 (8.70%) with malignant aspirates and 2 (4.35%) aspirates were inconclusive. Forty-four patients (95.65%) were subjected to surgery. The procedures carried out were hemi-thyroidectomy in 38 (86.37%) patients, near-total thyroidectomy in 4 (9.09%) cases while total thyroidectomy and isthmusectomy were carried out in one patient each (2.27% each). All the benign aspirates proved to be benign and all the malignant aspirates were malignant on histopathological results. Two patients (4.35%) did not undergo surgery for different reasons. The incidence of malignancy was 13.04%. FNAC is a highly reliable investigation to differentiate malignant from benign nodules and its use should be encouraged as the investigation of choice in management of solitary thyroid nodules.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com