Role of ultrasound, clinical and scintigraphyc parameters to predict malignancy in thyroid nodule

This study aimed to evaluate clinical, laboratory, ultrasound (US) and scintigraphyc parameters in thyroid nodule and to develop an auxiliary model for clinical application in the diagnosis of malignancy.

We assessed 143 patients who were surgically treated at a single center, 65% (93) benign vs. 35% (50) malignant lesions at final histology (1998-2008). The clinical, laboratory, scintigraphyc and US features were compared and a prediction model was designed after the multivariate analysis.

There were no differences in gender, serum TSH and FT4 levels, thyroid auto-antibodies (TAb), thyroid dysfunction and scintigraphyc results (P=0.33) between benign and malignant nodule groups. The sonographic study showed differences when the presence of suspected characteristics was found in the nodules of the malignant lesions group, such as: microcalcifications, central flow, border irregularity and hypoechogenicity. After the multivariate analysis the model obtained showed age (>39 years), border irregularity, microcalcifications and nodule size over 2 cm as predictive factors of malignancy, featuring 81.7% of accuracy.

This study confirmed a significant increase of risk for malignancy in patients of over 39 years and with suspicious features at US.