Role of Ancillary Techniques in Thyroid Cytology Specimens

Ancillary molecular testing has emerged as a promising way to refine the preoperative risk stratification of thyroid nodules with indeterminate fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy results. Commercially available molecular tests for thyroid FNAs include those that analyze samples for mutations and gene fusions, gene expression alterations, microRNA expression alterations, chromosomal copy number alterations, or a combination thereof. This review summarizes the performance characteristics of the most current iterations of three tests currently marketed for cytologically indeterminate thyroid nodules: ThyroSeq v3, ThyGeNEXT/ThyraMIR, and Afirma Gene Sequencing Classifier.