Diagnostic performance of combined elastosonography scoring and high-resolution ultrasonography for the differentiation of benign and malignant thyroid nodules.

AIM: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of the combined use of elstosonography (USE) scoring and high-resolution ultrasonography (HRUS) for the differentiation of benign and malignant thyroid nodule.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Forty-seven consecutive patients with 66 thyroid nodules were enrolled in the present study. Thyroid surgery had been already planned for all the patients. All of them were submitted to high-resolution ultrasonography and elastography scoring at the same sitting. The latter was determined with 5-point scoring method. The examination results were compared against pathological findings as the gold standard of reference.

RESULTS: The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive, and negative predictive values of HRUS in the differential diagnosis of thyroid nodules were 92.0%, 72.9%, 60.1%, 95.0%, and 63.1%, respectively, while that of ultrasound elastography scoring were 75.4%, 85.5%, 86.7%, 71.4%, and 90.5%, respectively. Combined use of both US techniques resulted in a higher diagnostic performance as it showed 95.4%, 94.8%, 95.2%, 82.3% and 98.8% sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive, and negative predictive values, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: The use of combined USE and HRS for the differentiation of benign and malignant thyroid nodules resulted in a high diagnostic performance and a significant statistical difference as compared to HRUS or USE alone (P=0.003).