Correlation study of ultrasonic strain elastography quantitative analysis with benign or malignant thyroid lesions

Abstract

Objective To explore the feasibility for the tissue dispersion quantitative analysis software of ultrasonic strain elastography in diagnosing benign or malignant of thyroid lesions.Methods Eighty-two patients with 98 lesions were examined by ultrasonic strain elastography.There were 11 parameters of elastography imaging obtained by the tissue dispersion quantitative analysis software,including average relative strain value(MEAN),standard deviation of relative strain value(SD),area ratio of low-strain region (AREA％),complexity(COMP),kurtosis(KURT),skewness (SKEW),contrast (CONT),entropy(ENT),inverse different moment (IDM),angular second moment (ASM),correlation (CORR).The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was constructed if there were statistically significant differences between benign and malignant lesions,and the areas under the ROC curve were got.Results All parameters except CORR had statistically significant between the groups of benign and malignant thyroid lesions (P ＜0.05).The AREA％ and IDM were the best valuable parameters,the areas under the curve(AUC) of which were 0.965 and 0.908,respectively.Their cut-off point were 81.96％ and 0.42,the sensitivity and specificitywere 98.4％ and 89.2％,91.8％ and 86.5％,respectively.Conclusions The tissue dispersion quantitative analysis software is helpful in the evaluation of benign ormalignant of thyroid lesions,parameters of AREA％ and IDM has the highest relationship with pathology and good diagnostic value. Key words: Ultrasonography; Thyroid nodule; Elasticity imaging techniques