[Utility of frozen section in the surgical treatment of thyroid nodules].

Objective: To present our experience of the use of frozen section (FS) in the operative management of thyroid nodules and determine the utility of this procedure when deciding the extent of thyroidectomy.

Patients And Method: We performed a prospective and comparative study. The FS of patients who underwent surgery for thyroid nodules between 1995 and 2002 were evaluated. The results were compared with those of fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNA) and definitive biopsy. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and diagnostic accuracy of both FNA and FS were calculated.

Results: There were 469 thyroidectomies and 179 FS were performed. The results obtained for FNA and FS were, respectively: PPV: 100%/100%; NPV: 89%/90%; diagnostic accuracy: 89.5%/91%. When only "follicular hyperplasia" was included as the cytologic diagnosis, the PPV and NPV for FS were 100% and 86.7%, respectively.

Conclusion: The diagnostic accuracy of FNAC and FS is similar. In cases of follicular hyperplasia, the sensitivity of FS is too low to rule out malignancy.