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The aims of this study were to evaluate the utility of shear wave elastography (SWE) using acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) for diagnosing chronic autoimmune thyroiditis (CAT) and to verify the effect of fibrotic thyroid tissue on shear wave velocity (SWV). The subjects were 229 patients with 253 normal thyroid lobes (controls) and 150 CAT lobes. The SWV for CAT (2.47 ± 0.57 m/s) was significantly higher than that for controls (1.59 ± 0.41 m/s) (P < 0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve for CAT was 0.899, and the SWV cut-off value was 1.96 m/s. The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy were 87.4%, 78.7%, and 85.1%, respectively. Levels of anti-thyroperoxidase antibodies and thyroid isthmus thickness were correlated with tissue stiffness in CAT. However, there was no correlation between levels of anti-thyroglobulin antibodies and tissue stiffness. Quantitative SWE is useful for diagnosing CAT, and it is possible that SWE can be used to evaluate the degree of fibrosis in patients with CAT.

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The present intervention study showed that thoracoscopic-limited surgery for clinically early lung cancers depending on findings in preoperative HRCT is feasible and appropriate from the viewpoint of oncology.

BackgroundUltrasonography is a non-invasive technique that is commonly used by endocrinologists and endocrine surgeons to examine the thyroid region and could be useful for the assessment of vocal cord movement by these specialists. However, previous studies reported a low rate of successful visualization of vocal cord movement by ultrasonography. To address this issue, we devised a novel ultrasonographic procedure for assessing vocal cord movement indirectly by observing the arytenoid movement from a lateral view.MethodsSubjects were 188 individuals, including 23 patients with vocal cord paralysis and 13 with vocal cord paresis. We performed ultrasonographic assessment of vocal cord movement using two different procedures: the conventional middle transverse procedure and the novel lateral vertical procedure.ResultsThe rate of visualization of vocal cords with the middle transverse procedure was 70.2% and that of the arytenoid cartilage with the lateral vertical procedure was 98.4%. The lateral vertical procedure enabled visualization of all patients with vocal cord paresis/paralysis and detected all 23 patients with vocal paralysis; only one of 13 patients with vocal cord paresis was positively identified. The conventional procedure enabled visualization of 21 of 36 patients with vocal cord paresis/paralysis with high accuracy. There was no false-positive case in either procedure.ConclusionThe proposed lateral vertical procedure improved the rate of visualization of vocal cord movement by ultrasonography, suggesting that it is a useful technique to screen for vocal cord paralysis by ultrasonography.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00268-017-4151-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A novel laser transfer technology has been developed for manufacturing large-sized organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. OLED materials are transferred from glass donors to a substrate by laser-induced pattern-wise sublimation (LIPS). RGB pixels are precisely patterned by LIPS. The LIPS OLED device performance has been examined in comparison with conventional evaporated device. Using this technology, we have fabricated a 27.3-inch active matrix OLED display.

Recently ultRasonogRaphy equipment has remarkably improved. High-resolution ultrasonography excels in the detection of thyroid lesions, and it is an essential tool for diagnosing thyroid diseases. The present of specific features on B-mode sonography, evaluation of blood flow with Doppler sonography, and the strain ratio measured by strain elastography (SE) provide predictions of tissue characteristics to a certain degree. However, ultrasonography remains suboptimal for diagnosing thyroid diseases [1,2].The novel technology of shear wave elastography (SWE), also known as virtual touch quantification For phantom study, we measured the shear wave velocities (SWVs) of the four spheres of 2-and 1-cm diameters with varying hardness. For clinical study, the SWVs of normal thyroid glands and thyroid nodules, that were classified as benign or malignant according to either cytological or pathological findings, were measured. The SWVs of each thyroid patient were compared with that of a normal thyroid and each other. In phantom study, the SWVs for the 2-cm spheres correlated with the hardness of the targets, whereas the values for the 1-cm spheres did not. In clinical study, 112 nodules identified in 167 patients and 94 normal thyroid glands were analyzed according to the criteria for the study. The nodules included 84 benign nodules, and 28 papillary carcinoma. The mean SWVs of each group were 1.64 ± 0.47 m/s for normal thyroid, 1.88 ± 0.62 m/s for benign nodules and 2.67 ± 0.76 m/s for papillary carcinoma. The SWVs of papillary carcinoma were significantly higher than those of benign nodules (P < 0.001). The area under the ROC curve was 0.809 with a cutoff value of 2.01 m/s. The sensitivity and specificity were 85.7% and 62.0% respectively. Results showed that SWE provides new information on tumor characteristics, such as hardness and larger nodules tended to provide stable measurements.