Aim. To analyze modern literature dealing with the issues of finding highly informative modern methods of early diagnostics of malignant tumors of thyroid.Materials and methods. The study of recent Russian and foreign literature in the databases RSCI, Scopus, Web of Science, Pubmed has been carried out.Results.This article represents statistical information on the prevalence of this disease, age and gender peculiarities, modern international cytological classification of thyroid – Thyroid Bethesda Classification. The article shows diagnostic values of ultrasound, elastography, dopplerography, as well as fine needle aspiration biopsy with the subsequent cytological, immunocytochemical study, and molecular-genetic research. The advantages and disadvantages of existing methods of diagnostics of cancer of thyroid have been analyzed. High sensitivity and specificity of molecular genetic studies, which increases with application of diagnostic panels has been observed.Conclusion. Modern science has many methods for early diagnosis of malignant forms of thyroid disease, but none of them meets the modern requirements of practical health care. It justifies the importance of further search for sensitive, specific and available diagnostic methods of thyroid cancer.