Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Manifested Solely as Microcalcifications on Sonography

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to assess the utility of sonographic detection and the role of sonography-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) in thyroid carcinomas that appear only as microcalcifications without an associated mass. CONCLUSION: This study covers 11 cases in which the only abnormal finding suggesting thyroid cancer was microcalcifications detected at sonography. All cases described were diagnosed as thyroid papillary carcinoma after surgery. Hence, it is shown that real-time high-resolution sonography is effective in the detection of thyroid carcinomas that appear as microcalcifications without an associated mass. The results of sonography-guided FNAB were satisfactory to diagnose these microcalcifications as thyroid carcinomas. Therefore, we believe that thyroid sonography combined with sonography-guided FNAB is a useful approach for diagnosing thyroid microcalcifications.