A Morpho-Molecular Diagnosis of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma: <i>BRAF</i> V600E Detection as an Important Tool in Preoperative Evaluation of Fine-Needle Aspirates

Abstract

The method of molecular analysis of thyroid FNA smears described here can be easily performed after the FNA, thereby avoiding inconvenience and additional time during the FNA and permitting later analysis of samples having indeterminate cytology features. The increased sensitivity of this preoperative morpho-molecular analysis should provide information that is useful in deciding the extent of thyroid surgery for thyroid nodules that are indeterminate or suspicious on cytology.