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Title	Claps	Level	Year	L/Y
Guidelines of The Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology for the examination of fine‐needle aspiration specimens from thyroid nodules: The Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology Task Force on Standards of Practice K. Suen Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) of the thyroid is used principally as a triage procedure, although in experienced hands it may also be diagnostic for certain thyroid lesions, such as colloid goiter, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, papillary carcinoma, high-gr… Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) of the thyroid is used principally as a triage procedure, although in experienced hands it may also be diagnostic for certain thyroid lesions, such as colloid goiter, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, papillary carcinoma, high-grade follicular carcinoma, medullary carcinoma, anaplastic carcinoma, large cell lymphoma, and metastatic carcinoma. The main goal of thyroid FNA is to distinguish nodules that require surgery from those that do not, thereby decreasing the number of diagnostic thyroidectomies. However, FNA of the thyroid does not eliminate all diagnostic operations. No test that serves a triage or screening function is 100% effective, and the patient should be fully informed about the riskhenefit ratio of the procedure. Note that it would be useful for each laboratory to compute the ratio of malignant to benign nodules in thyroidectomy specimens obtained before and during the FNA era. A comparatively higher ratio in the FNA biopsy era reflects favorably on the clinical utility of the test. If FNA of the thyroid lacks utility, clinicians will not use it. A false-positive report in thyroid cytology is undesirable but is not of major concern because, without this test, many more patients with solitary, “cold” nodules would require excision for diagnosis. It is more important to maintain the lowest false-negative rate possible to ensure that few carcinomas will be missed. The aim is to achieve a false-negative rate of less than 2% and a false-positive rate of less than 3%. 1.346-10 Note that the incidence of false-negative diagnosis is difficult to gauge because only approximately 10% of patients with benign Published in Diagnostic Cytopathology	12	8	1996