Diagnostic value of elastosonography for thyroid microcarcinoma.

Area of Science:

• Diagnostic imaging
• Oncology
• Medical ultrasonography

Background:

• Thyroid microcarcinoma (TMC) diagnosis relies on accurate imaging.
• Elastosonography offers quantitative tissue stiffness assessment.
• Elasticity score (ES) and strain ratio (SR) are key elastosonography metrics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the diagnostic performance of elastosonography for TMC.
• To compare the diagnostic value of elasticity score (ES) and strain ratio (SR).
• To assess SR's ability to predict TMC extracapsular extension.

Main Methods:

• Conventional ultrasound and elastosonography on 487 thyroid micronodules.
• Histology served as the reference standard.
• Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis for ES and SR thresholds.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in ES and SR between TMC and benign nodules (P<0.05).
• SR demonstrated superior diagnostic performance (AUC 0.956) compared to ES (AUC 0.844).
• SR achieved higher sensitivity (86.6%), specificity (85.3%), and accuracy (89.4%) than ES.

Conclusions:

• Elastosonography aids in differentiating benign from malignant thyroid nodules.
• SR provides objective tissue hardness data and predicts TMC extracapsular extension.
• SR may predict bilateral cervical lymph node metastasis in TMC.