Comparative study of ultrasound elastography and conventional ultrasound in the diagnosis of thyroid nod-ules

Objective To explore the clinical value and significance of elastography technique used in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules .Methods The preoperative imaging data of pathologically confirmed 138 patients with thyroid nodules（160 nodules） were retrospectively analyzed .The imaging characteristics of routine preoperative ultra-sound and elastography were compared and the results were compared with the histopathological findings ,thus to eval-uate the clinical value of elastography in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules .Results Of 160 thyroid nodules in 138 pa-tients,129 nodules （80.63%） were histologically confirmed benign ,31 nodules （19.38%） were confirmed malig-nant.According to the elastic graph color grading standards of ultrasound elastography , in 129 benign nodules,＆nbsp;113 nodules （86.82%） were 0~Ⅱ grade,16 nodules（13.18%） wereⅢ~Ⅳ grade.Of 31 malignant nodules,4 nodules （12.90%） were 0~Ⅱgrade,27 nodules （87.10%） wereⅢ~Ⅳgrade.The diagnosis coincidence rate of conventional ultrasound was 66.25%,which was significantly lower than 87.50%of elastosonography （χ2 =20.32, P=0.000）.The specificity,sensitivity,positive predictive value and negative predictive value of routine ultrasound were 61.29%,67.44%,87.88%,31.15%,which were significantly lower than those of ultrasound elastography （87.10%,87.60%,96.58%,62.79%）（χ2 =15.04,P=0.000;χ2 =5.39,P=0.022;χ2 =5.92,P=0.019;χ2 =10.24,P=0.001）.Conclusion Compared with conventional ultrasound ,ultrasound elastography technique has ob-vious advantages in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules ,which has very important clini-cal value and should be popularized and applied in clinical diagnosis . Key words: Thyroid nodules; Routine ultrasound; Ultrasound elastography; Diagnosis