Diagnostic terminology for reporting thyroid fine needle aspiration cytology: European Federation of Cytology Societies thyroid working party symposium, Lisbon 2009

Abstract

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.