Comparison of risk of malignancy in a subgroup with atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance: A meta‐analysis

• Published in: Head & neck Vol. 39; no. 8; pp. 1699 - 1710
• Main Authors: Ahn, Soon‐Hyun, Kim, Seong Dong, Jeong, Woo‐Jin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.08.2017
• Subjects: atypia of undetermined significance; Biopsy; Confidence Intervals; Cytodiagnosis; Diagnosis, Differential; fine‐needle; Head and neck; Health risk assessment; Humans; Malignancy; Meta-analysis; neoplasm; Thyroid Diseases - pathology; Thyroid Gland - pathology; Thyroid Neoplasms - pathology; thyroid nodule; Thyroid Nodule - pathology; atypia of undetermined significance; biopsy; meta-analysis; thyroid nodule; neoplasm; fine-needle
• ISSN: 1043-3074; 1097-0347
• DOI: 10.1002/hed.24768

Background As heterogeneous findings are included in the atypia of undetermined significance (AUS)/follicular lesion of undetermined significance (FLUS) category, differing risks of malignancy in subgroups have been reported in several articles. Methods We performed a meta‐analysis of full‐text publications written in English found in the Embase and PubMed databases. Results The 4‐tiered subgroup proportion meta‐analysis showed that the 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of the risk of malignancy in the cellular atypia group did not overlap with the other 3 subgroups and demonstrated a significant difference. Two‐tiered analysis using the cytologic and architectural atypia groups showed that cytologic atypia group had a 2.64‐fold increase in the risk of malignancy compared with the architectural atypia group. Conclusion The cytologic atypia had a significantly higher risk of malignancy than the architectural atypia group, and it should be considered as a separate category.