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Objective To evaluate the application value of virtual touch tissue quantification (VTQ)for evaluating small focal liver lesions.Methods Seventy-seven patients with 89 small focal liver lesions,whose largest diameter were less than or equal to 3 cm were evaluated with VTQ.The shcar wave velocity (SWV) of the tumor and background liver parenchyma were calculated,and their results were compared with those of 40 healthy subjects.Statistical analysis was performed on the SWV for the differentiation of normal liver,background liver parenchyma and lesions.The cut-off point for SWV was obtained by using ROC curve analysis which was used to predict malignancy lesions.Results The SWV of malignant lesions was significantly higher than that of benign ones [(2.56-± 0.67) m/s vs (1.70 ± 0.55) m/s,P =0.000].The SWV of metastatic liver carcinoma which came from lung cancer and breast cancer were higher than that of gastrointestinal tract cancer transfers (P =0.000).Based on 1.93 m/s as the cut-off point of SWV value,the sensitivity,specificity,accuracy,positive predictive value and negative predictive value for diagnosing malignancies were 82.0 ％,84.6％,83.15 ％,87.23 ％ and 78.57 ％ respectively.Conclusions VTQ technique can help the differential diagnosis of small focal liver lesions.
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Objective To investigate the value of virtual touch tissue imaging (VTI) in the differential diagnosis of small solid thyroid nodules.Methods 35 patients with 41 small thyroid nodules were examined by conventional ultrasound and VTI examination.The stiffness of the nodules in VTI images was scored.Area ratios of VTI and gray scale images of nodules were calculated.The pathological diagnosis was used as the gold standard.The ROC curve was drawn to determine the cut off point of area ratio to predict thyroid cancer.Results 41 small thyroid nodules were confirmed by pathological diagnosis,including 23 benign and 18 malignant nodules.Compared with benign nodules,the ratio of VTI hardness score ≥4 was significantly higher in the malignant nodules (88.9％ vs 8.7％,P ＜0.01).Compared with benign nodules,the area ratios of malignant nodules were higher (1.67 ± 0.16 vs 1.23 ± 0.12,P ＜0.01).When 1.46 was set as the cut off point of areas ratio,the sensitivity and specificity of diagnosing thyroid cancer were 88.9％ and 95.7％,respectively.Conclusions VTI can provide information about thyroid nodules hardness.It has high value in the differential diagnosis of small solid thyroid nodules.