Keywords:
Head and neck, Ultrasound, Biopsy, Pathology
Authors:
G. Hinton, S. Prowse
DOI:
10.26044/ranzcr2022/R-0080
Purpose
Ultrasound guided thyroid FNA is a commonly performed procedure in radiology departments in the workup of patients with thyroid nodules. Prior to COVID-19 my experience in public teaching hospitals was that the pathologist attended the procedure to collect the sample, prepare the slides and confirm adequacy of sample. Since COVID-19 I observed across multiple hospitals that this practice changed and pathologists were no longer attending these procedures, as such I decided to conduct a quality control audit at my current hospital to assess if this change of practice has impacted the diagnostic yield of thyroid FNA. I personally had not prepared slides before COVID-19, however I understand that this is routine in private practice and potentially interstate hospitals.