Of the 291 patients that made up our study population 178 were younger than 55 years (45.5%) and 113 were 55 years or older (26.5%) (Table 3). The risk of malignancy in the non-diagnostic category was 20% for patients younger than 55 years and 0% for older patients. In the benign category, the risk of malignancy for the younger category was 5.6% vs 2.5% in the older category. In the AUS/FLUS category, the risk of malignancy was 36.8% in the younger category vs 7.4% in the older category. In the suspicious for follicular neoplasm category, the risk of malignancy in the younger group was 14.3% vs 42.1% in the older group. In the suspicious for malignancy category, the risk of malignancy was 92.3% in the younger group and 77.8% in the older group. In the malignant category, the risk of malignancy in the younger group was 100% vs. 92.3% in the older group. The overall risk of malignancy for patients younger than 55 years was 45.5%, and for patients 55 years or older was 26.5%. The difference in risk of malignancy between these two age groupings was statistically significant (p=0.0013). The malignancy risk was higher in the group of patients younger than 55 years. For the AUS/FLUS BSRTC diagnostic group, the cancer risk was significantly higher for patients younger than 55 years (p=0.0082) (Table 3).