Clinical, ultrasound and anatomopathological concordance of thyroid nodules in Kinshasa: a cross-sectional study

The European Thyroid Association Thyroid Imaging Data and Reporting Systems (EU-TIRADS) is widely used in the risk stratification of thyroid nodule malignancy. However, data on the subject in Sub-Saharan Africa are limited. The objective of this study is to evaluate the clinical, sonographic and histopathological concordance of thyroid nodules in the diagnosis of thyroid cancer.

This was an analytical cross-sectional study that examined the clinical, ultrasound and pathological data of 61 patients from 4 hospitals in the city province of Kinshasa over a period of 24 months, from June 01, 2020 to May 31, 2022.

Of the 61 patients, their mean age was 47.38 ± 8.8 years. The mean clinical score of the patients was 3.4 ± 0.84 with the extremes ranging from 1 to 5. The majority of the patients were classified as having an intermediate risk, ie 85.2% of the cases. It was noted that 41% of the nodules had a high risk according to the EU-TIRADS score and 8.2% of the nodules were malignant after histopathological analysis. The ROC curves reported at the diagnosis of malignancy show an area under the curve of 0.709 with 95% CI (0.486-0.931), a Youden index of 0.769 for the clinical score, and an area under the curve of 0.830 with 95% CI (0.605-0.995), a Youden index of 0.772 for the EU-TIRADS score.

In a low-income country, a well-performed thyroid ultrasound and the well-applied clinical score could be an important tool in the selection of thyroid nodules suspected of malignancy and requiring histopathological examination to avoid excessive acts in the patient.