Needle aspiration techniques in preoperative selection of patients with thyroid nodules: a long-term study.

Long-term evaluation of the combination of two needle aspiration techniques (NAT) (fine-needle aspiration [FNA] and aspiration needle biopsy [ANB]) in performing an efficient preoperative selection of palpable thyroid nodules.Eight years of extensive use of surgery for the detection of thyroid cancer was compared with 12 years of preoperative selection of by NAT.A total of 1,140 operations were performed from 1972 to 1979, and 35 malignant...