DIAGNOSIS OF PRIMARY THYROID LYMPHOMA THROUGH FINE-NEEDLE ASPIRATION BIOPSY (FNAB) Panagiotis Heras (1), Theodosis Andrianopoulos (1), Ioannis Tsiverdis (1), Nikolaos Roussakis (1), Ilias Georgopoulos (1), Antonios Hatzopoulos (1) (1) Clinic of Internal Medicine, General Hospital of Nafplio, GREECE

Introduction: The primary lymphoma of the thyroid gland represents <5% of all thyroid neoplasms. The relative risk of lymphoma development is multiplied by times in patients with thyroiditis. Our objective was to present a case of cytological diagnosis of primary lymphoma of the thyroid through fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB).

Materials and Methods: In our case, we present a 52 year old female patient, who came to the Emergency Department (ED) of our hospital, complaining of a painful, hard, fast-growing swelling of the thyroid in the region of the isthmus. The laboratory tests showed that the patient was euthyroid and the test for anti-thyroid antibodies was negative. In the ultrasound study, the swelling was depicted as nodular, with cystic configuration. A FNAB was conducted under ultrasound guidance. The cytological examination of the obtained material stated the diagnosis of lymphoma. The patient underwent total thyroidectomy surgery under general anesthesia. Histological examination of the thyroidectomy extracted material confirmed the initial cytological diagnosis. Conclusion: As the primary lymphomas are primarily developed in patients with Hashimoto thyroiditis, the clinical and laboratory differential diagnosis between the two diseases is difficult. In this case, the FNAB under ultrasound guidance was very useful diagnostically.