A European Federation of Cytology Societies (EFCS) working party of 28 members from 14 European countries met at the European Congress of Cytology in Lisbon in September 2009, with two observers from the USA, to discuss the need for standardising thyroid FNA nomenclature in the light of the National Institute of Cancer (NCI) recommendations resulting from the State of the Science conference in Bethesda in 2007. The data were obtained through two questionnaires sent by email and a transcript of the live discussion at the congress, which is presented in full. The surveys and discussion showed that there were currently no national terminologies for reporting thyroid FNA in the different European countries except in Italy and the UK. Personal, 'local', surgical pathology and descriptive terminologies were in use. All but one of the working party members agreed that thyroid FNA reporting should be standardised. Whilst almost a third would adopt the NCI Bethesda terminology, which offers the advantages of a 'risk of cancer' correlation and is linked to clinical recommendations, more than half favoured a translation of local terminology as the first step towards a unified nomenclature, as has been done recently in the UK. There was some disagreement about the use of: a) the six-tiered as opposed to four or five-tiered systems, b) the use of an indeterminate category and c) the 'follicular neoplasm' category, which was felt by some participants not to be different from the 'suspicious of malignancy' category. The conclusions will be passed to the different national societies of cytology for discussion, who will be asked to map their local terminologies to the Bethesda classification, observe its acceptance by clinicians and audit its correlation with outcome.

: RDW is an integrative parameter reflecting tumor specific features and shows significant association with overall survival in patients with CRC. This is especially important in patients with stage 2 disease where elevation in preoperative RDW values can contribute to recognition of higher risk patients.

Intrathyroidal parathyroid carcinoma is extremely rare clinical entity with potentially multiple diagnostic pitfalls. We report a case of 40-year-old man presented with classical manifestations of primary hyperparathyroidism, severe hypercalcemia and profoundly increased serum parathyroid hormone level. Neck ultrasonography demonstrated multinodular goiter with predominant 34 mm nodule in left thyroid lobe. Additional 16 mm nodule was found beneath the left lobe. Routine percutaneous fine-needle aspiration of predominant nodule indicated follicular thyroid carcinoma, while left inferior nodule was confirmed to be of parathyroid origin. The patient underwent surgery, during which frozen sections identified medullary thyroid carcinoma with metastasis to upper mediastinal lymph node. Permanent sections of the predominant left lobe nodule revealed intrathyroidal parathyroid carcinoma surrounded with multiple microscopic metastases. Left inferior nodule was metastatic lymph node. Additional 10 mm intrathyroidal metastasis of primary parathyroid carcinoma was found within right thyroid lobe. This case indicates that fine-needle-aspiration and intraoperative biopsy are of limited value in diagnosing parathyroid carcinoma, especially if localized intrathyroidally. Oncological en-block resection is treatment of choice, implying ipsilateral lobectomy in case of thyroid invasion. This firstly described case of intrathyroidal parathyroid carcinoma causing intrathyroidal dissemination may influence future treatment strategies.

Our results suggest that the presence of macrophages and/or HC may explain the positive expression of galectin-3 and CD44v6 detected by RT-PCR in HT and NG cytological samples.

There is a great interest in molecular markers that would help in the preoperative diagnosis of malignant thyroid nodules in cases of indeterminate fine-needle aspiration cytology. The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of HMGA2 gene expression in discriminating benign from malignant thyroid nodules. In this study, 237 preoperative thyroid fine-needle aspiration samples were analyzed prospectively for the expression of the HMGA2 gene by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The results were evaluated against the postoperative histopathologic diagnosis or definitive cytologic diagnosis in cases of nodular goiter and Hashimoto thyroiditis. Among 237 samples from patients with thyroid nodules that were analyzed, 231 were adequate for real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis. With a cutoff value of 8.71 for relative gene expression, HMGA2 was positive in 19 (16.4%) of 116 nodular goiter, 1 (2.6%) of 39 Hashimoto thyroiditis, 9 (28.1%) of 32 follicular adenoma, 0 (0%) of 5 Hurthle cell adenoma, 32 (88.9%) of 36 papillary carcinoma, and 3 (100%) of 3 follicular carcinoma samples. In discriminating between malignant and benign thyroid nodules, HMGA2 has shown specificity of 84.5%, sensitivity of 91.9%, positive predictive value of 53.1%, and negative predictive value of 98.2%. High sensitivity and negative predictive value of HMGA2 for preoperative detection of malignant thyroid nodules shown in this study indicate that it may have a role as an ancillary marker in cytology in the management of patients with thyroid nodules.