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Updated: Mar 15, 2026
Author Spotlight: Integrating Ultrasound Imaging with Biochemical Markers for Thyroid Disease Diagnosis
Published on: February 9, 2024
Comparison of Virtual Touch Tissue Imaging & Quantification (VTIQ) and Virtual Touch Tissue Quantification (VTQ) for
Yu-Ping Yang1,2,3,4, Xiao-Hong Xu1, Xiao-Wan Bo2,3,4
1Department of Ultrasound, Guangdong Medical University Affiliated Hospital, Zhanjiang, China.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of Virtual Touch Tissue Imaging & Quantification (VTIQ) and Virtual Touch Tissue Quantification (VTQ) in differentiating benign from malignant thyroid nodules (TNs).
Materials And Methods:
In this study 107 TNs in 107 patients were enrolled and analyzed. All of them were detected by conventional ultrasound (US) and confirmed by fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy or surgery. VTIQ and VTQ examinations were performed on each nodule. Thereafter the median and mean of shear wave speed (SWS) values in lesions on VTIQ and VTQ were computed (SWS-median and SWS-mean). With cytological results of FNA and histological results adopted as the reference standard, area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of VTIQ and VTQ in differentiation of TNs.
Results:
Among the 107 lesions, 19 were papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTCs), 1 was medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) and 87 were benign. In total lesions, AUROC-median in VTIQ was significantly higher than that in VTQ (0.851 vs.0.759; p < 0.05).
Conclusion:
VTIQ and VTQ were equivalent in diagnosing TNs when using SWS-mean, whereas VTIQ showed better performance in comparison with VTQ when using SWS-median.
