Lobectomy may not be suitable for patients with follicular neoplasm cytology

BACKGROUND/AIM: The most appropriate surgical management of follicular neoplasm/suspicious for follicular neoplasm (FN) lesions is still contradictory. We aimed to evaluate the data of our patients with follicular neoplasm treated with thyroidectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the data of 74 patients who were diagnosed with follicular neoplasm cytology (FN cytology) by fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) and had undergone total thyroidectomy or lobectomy with isthmectomy (LwI). RESULTS: We examined a total of 74 patients, of which 64 (83.7%) were female and 10 (16.3%) were male. The malignancy rate in the pathological examinations of these patients was 31/74 (41.9%). The most common cancer among the patients with malignancy was papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC) (20/31, 65%). Among the subtypes of PTCs, 11 were classical PTC, 5 were a follicular variant of PTC, 2 were the oncocytic variant of PTC, 1 was the diffuse sclerosing variant, and 1 was a columnar cell variant of PTC. CONCLUSION: Since most FN cytology has been pathologically diagnosed with papillary cancer and some papillary cancer subtypes have been unfavorable pathologically, total thyroidectomy should be the most suitable treatment option in this group. Lobectomy with LwI is not suitable for patients with FNAB-proven FN cytology.