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Clinical impact of the new SIAPEC-IAP classification on the indeterminate category of thyroid nodules

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Abstract

Background

The increasing frequency in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules has raised a growing interest in the search for new diagnostic tools to better select patients deserving surgery. In 2014, the major Italian Societies involved in the field drafted a new cytological classification, to better stratify pre-surgical risk of thyroid cancer, especially for the indeterminate category, split into TIR3A and TIR3B subclasses, associated to different therapeutic decisions.

Materials and methods

This retrospective cross-sectional survey analyzed thyroid fine-needle aspiration biopsy performed at our outpatient clinic before and after the introduction of the new SIAPEC-IAP consensus in May 2014.

Results

8956 thyroid nodules were included in the analysis: 5692 were evaluated according to the old classification and 3264 according to the new one. The new criteria caused the overall prevalence of TIR3 to increase from 6.1 to 20.1%. Of those, 10.7 and 9.4% were included in the TIR3A and TIR3B subgroups, respectively. Each of the 213 TIR3B nodules underwent surgery and 86 (40.4%) were diagnosed as thyroid cancer, while among the 349 TIR3A nodules, only 15 of the 60 that underwent surgery were found to be thyroid cancer.

Conclusions

This analysis shows that the new SIAPEC-IAC criteria significantly increased the proportion of the overall TIR3 diagnosis. The division of TIR3 nodules into two subgroups (A and B) allowed a better evaluation of the oncologic risk and a better selection of patients to be referred to surgery.

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Acknowledgements

All the authors would like to thank Mrs Tania Del Soldato, professional nurse, for her precious help in collecting data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Endocrinology Unit, Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences “Mario Serio”, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    C. Sparano, E. Mannucci, M. Mannelli & G. Forti

  2. Endocrinology Unit, Medical-Geriatric Department, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Viale Pieraccini 18, 50139, Florence, Italy

    G. Parenti, A. Cilotti & L. Petrone

  3. Department of Oncologic Surgery and Robotics, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Florence, Italy

    L. Bencini & M. Calistri

  4. Ultrasound Service, Diagnostic Center of the Pubblica Assistenza di Signa, Florence, Italy

    C. Biagini

  5. Department of Histopathology and Molecular Diagnostics, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Florence, Italy

    V. Vezzosi

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  1. C. Sparano
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  2. G. Parenti
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  3. A. Cilotti
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  4. L. Bencini
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  6. E. Mannucci
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  7. C. Biagini
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  9. M. Mannelli
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  10. G. Forti
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  11. L. Petrone
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Correspondence to L. Petrone.

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The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in our study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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For this type of study formal consent is not required.

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Sparano, C., Parenti, G., Cilotti, A. et al. Clinical impact of the new SIAPEC-IAP classification on the indeterminate category of thyroid nodules. J Endocrinol Invest 42, 1–6 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40618-018-0871-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40618-018-0871-7

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