Value of measurement of nuclear diameter of cells in fine needle aspiration smears in the diagnosis of follicular lesions of the thyroid

[摘要] Introduction: Subjective assessment of thyroidepithelial cells in aspiration cytology smears isoften not useful in distinguishing benign andmalignant thyroid follicular lesions.Objectives: To determine whether objectivemeasurement of the nuclear diameter ofthyroid follicular epithelial cells in smearswould be useful in distinguishing benign andmalignant thyroid follicular lesions.Method: Fine needle aspiration cytology ofhistologically proven follicular adenoma (FA,n=50), hyperplastic nodule (HN, n=38) andfollicular carcinoma (FC, n=24) stained withPapanicolaou stain and haematoxylin andeosin stain were assessed. The “cellSens”computer software (Version 1.16) was usedwith an Olympus BX53 microscope for themeasurement of nuclear diameters. Thenuclear diameters of 100 cells (x400magnification) were measured from each caseand the mean and standard deviation werecalculated. Statistical analysis was carried outwith a two-sample pooled t-test and one-wayANOVA test with post hoc testing.Results: The two-sampled pooled t-testshowed that there was no significantdifference in nuclear diameters between the two stains (p>0.25). The one-way ANOVA testshowed that there was a significant differencebetween the mean nuclear diameters of thesethree groups (p<0.001). The post hoc testshowed that there was a significant differencebetween FA versus FC and HN versus FC(p<0.001). A significant difference was alsoseen between FA and HN (p<0.05). The 95%confidence intervals (CI) showed that FC had adistinct range of nuclear diameters which werehigher than FA and HN. However, the 95% CIvalues for FA and HN showed an overlappinggrey area.Conclusion: Objective measurement of nucleardiameter in thyroid cytology smears may proveto be useful in distinguishing benign follicularlesions from malignant follicular lesions.

[学科分类] 生理学与病理学

[关键词] follicular lesions;mean nucleardiameter;cytology