RESUMO
To highlight diagnostic difficulties and evaluate the outcome of malignancy in nodular goiter. Case series. This study was conducted in the Surgical Unit-III and Unit-IV at Liaquat University Hospital Jamshoro, from January 2001 to December 2004. Nodular goiter patients admitted for treatment were studied with the help of a pre-designed proforma for recording the personal history, blood chemistry and FNAC results. The results of FNACs were further compared with the tissue histology postoperatively. During the four year study period 14 patients had malignancy out of total 149 cases of nodular goiter admitted. Twelve patients were diagnosed on FNAC. These patients were operated and near total thyroidectomy was done. Two patients diagnosed to have carcinoma on tissue biopsy [FNAC did not pick the malignancy] were re-admitted and had near total thyroidectomy. One patient with lymphoma was referred to Department of Oncology for radiotherapy. All patients with neoplasm postoperatively were referred to oncology department for further management to suppress the TSH. Near total thyroidectomy is the surgery of choice to decrease the recurrence rate in thyroid malignancies