• Aseel Doubi, Nuha S Alrayes, Abdulaziz K Alqubaisi, and Saleh F Al-Dhahri.
• From the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• Ann Saudi Med. 2021 Jan 1; 41 (1): 36-42.

BackgroundFine-needle aspiration (FNA) is an invaluable technique used in the evaluation of thyroid nodules.ObjectivesEvaluate the concordance of results for consecutive FNA readings.DesignRetrospective, descriptive.SettingsTwo tertiary care centers.MethodsDemographics were collected along with every FNA result and final pathology results for all patients (aged 9-90 years old) who underwent thyroid surgery from 2010 to 2017. The Bethesda system was used for cytology. Agreement levels were calculated and compared with final pathology.Sample SizeOf 1237 initially included, 1134 had at least one FNA performed with results available for review.ResultsFor the 1134 patients, demographic and clinical data were collection and a comparison was made between the three FNA results; the highest agreement was between FNA 2 and 3 (53.6%); however, the kappa value was consistently low for all comparisons, indicating a poor level of agreement overall. Also, the risk of malignancy was higher in this study than in the 2017 Bethesda system for reporting thyroid cytopathology in FNA cytology categories I and II.ConclusionRepeating FNA biopsies yield different results every time; hence, there is a low level of agreement. The clinical decision should therefore include other important risk factors. Prospective studies could help shed more light on this topic.LimitationsRetrospective design.Conflict Of InterestNone.

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