Bilateral thyroid hematomas after fine-needle aspiration causing acute airway obstruction.

Background: Fine-needle aspiration of the thyroid gland is a common procedure that is increasingly being used to evaluate thyroid nodules incidentally found by other imaging means such as computed tomography scans. Rare complications include hematoma, transient vocal cord paralysis, seeding of carcinoma cells, and infection. Of these, hematoma is the most common and is usually small and adequately treated with compression of the site.