Inter-Rater Reliability of Thyroid Ultrasound Risk Criteria: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The most commonly employed diagnostic criteria for identifying thyroid nodules include Thyroid Imaging and Reporting Data System (TI-RADS) and American Thyroid Association (ATA) guidelines. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the inter-rater reliability of thyroid ultrasound criteria.

We performed a library search of MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), and Web of Science for full-text articles published from January 2005 to June 2022. We included full-text primary research articles that used TI-RADS and/or ATA guidelines to evaluate thyroid nodules in adults. These included studies must have calculated inter-rater reliability using any validated metric. The Quality Appraisal for Reliability Studies (QAREL) was used to assess study quality. We planned for a random-effects meta-analysis, in addition to covariate and publication bias analyses. This study was performed in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis guidelines and registered prior to conduction (International prospective register of systematic reviews-PROSPERO: CRD42021275072).

Of the 951 articles identified via the database search, 35 met eligibility criteria. All studies were observational. The most commonly utilized criteria were ACR Thyroid Imaging and Reporting Data System (TI-RADS) and/or ATA criteria, while the majority of studies employed Κ statistics. For ACR TI-RADS, the pooled Κ was 0.51 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.42, 0.57; n = 7) while for ATA, the pooled Κ was 0.52 (95% CI: 0.37, 0.67; n = 3). Due to the small number of studies, covariate or publication bias analyses were not performed.

Ultrasound criteria demonstrate moderate inter-rater reliability, but these findings are impacted by poor study quality and a lack of standardization. Laryngoscope, 133:485-493, 2023.