As a prelude to writing this editorial, I went to PubMed and typed in ''thyroid FNA (fine needle aspiration).'' With the simple press of ''go,'' I was promptly led to 722 references. Since 1995, there were 576 references on this topic. From 2006 until 2008 alone, there were 147! If I refined my search parameters to English language, humans, and 1995-2008, the list was 483 references long. In a comparison of what amounts to apples and oranges, using identical search parameters (English language, humans, and 1995-2008) a duplicate search for ''kidney'' or ''renal FNA'' gave me only 103 references. One cannot help but find these numbers interesting considering we all have two kidneys and only one thyroid. The only logical conclusion is that thyroid FNA is a ''growth'' area in medicine (no pun intended). This is substantiated by early, but enlightening necropsy studies of patients with ''clinically normal thyroids'' performed by Mortenson, Bennet, and Woolner. These authors concluded that among patients with clinically normal thyroid glands, almost 50% actually have nodules, the vast majority of which are benign. 1,2 With high resolution ultrasound imaging, the number of thyroid nodules may actually be even higher.
Within the proverbial thyroid cauldron, there are many spoons. From the top of the medical food chain down we have surgeons, radiologists, endocrinologists, and surgical pathologists. Last but not least are the cytopathologists struggling to make accurate and specific diagnoses on samples that have been deemed to be merely a surgical triage tool. In Pap tests we historically struggled to reduce