2013 European Thyroid Association Guidelines for Cervical Ultrasound Scan and Ultrasound-Guided Techniques in the Postoperative Management of Patients with Thyroid Cancer

Abstract

This report presents (1) standardization of the US scanning procedure, techniques of US-guided fine-needle aspiration, and reporting of findings; (2) definition of criteria for classi-fication of malignancy risk based on cervical US imaging characteristics of neck masses and lymph nodes; (3) indica-tions for US-guided fine-needle aspiration and for biological in situ assessments; (4) proposal of an algorithm for the fol-low-up of thyroid cancer patients based on risk stratification following histopathological and cervical US findings, and (5) discussion of the potential use of US-guided localization and ablation techniques for locoregional thyroid metastases.