Diagnostic Value of Preoperative Serum Thyroglobulin Measurement for the Diagnosis of Malignancy in Follicular or Hürthle Cell Neoplasms of the Thyroid Gland

Abstract

Abstract Objectives The aim of this retrospective study was whether serum Tg predicts malignancy in follicular or Hürthle-cell neoplasms on fine needle aspiration. Methods A chart review of 111 patients (90 females, 21 males; mean age 46.8 ± 11.9 years) with follicular or Hürthle-cell neoplasms on fine needle aspiration, who were surgically treated between Sep. 2001 and Sep. 2011, was performed. Predictive factors for malignancy were identified by the chi-squared test and multivariate logistic regression. Results There were no differences between 41 malignant and 70 benign lesions in serum Tg or any of the normalized indexes. Receiver-operator characteristic analysis revealed no cutoff value. Lesions with serum Tg levels greater than 500 g/L had no significant difference. And also there were no independent predictors of malignancy by multivariate logistic regression. Conclusions In this study, the author found that serum Tg has poor accuracy for predicting malignancy in follicular or Hürthle cell neoplasms on fine needle aspiration.

Keywords

• follicular neoplasm
• hü
• rthle cell neoplasm
• serum thyroglobulin
• thyroid carcinoma