A Study on the Role of Shear Wave Elastography in Characterization of Thyroid Nodule Using Cytology as Gold Standard

Abstract

Background- Sonographic characterisation of thyroid nodular disease has been always challenging for radiologists. Histopathology is the gold standard but it is invasive. Our study aims to assess the role Shear wave Elastography (SWE) in differentiation of benign and malignant thyroid nodules, taking cytology as the gold standard. Material and method- A Prospesctive study was done on patient with 62 clinically suspected thyroid nodule who were refered for USG . Grayscale USG and SWE were then performed using 14 MHz linear transducer Results- Out of 62 nodule 24 were malignent and 38 were benign on cytology . SWE is done and Elasticity values were calculated. SWE values were higher in malignant nodule than benign nodules The cut off value of E for thyroid nodules is taken as 53.95 kPa with sensitivity of 89.47% . max Thus SWE proved signicant role in differentiation of benign and malignant thyroid nodules (p value <0.001). Conclusion- Shear wave elastography being a noninvasive technique can provide quantitative information on differentiating benign and malignant thyroid nodules thus can be used as an adjunct method to ultrasound.