Recognizing the relationship between calcification and thyroid cancer / 中华医学超声杂志（电子版）

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the differential diagnostic signiifcance of different calciifcation types in thyroid benign and malignant nodules with high-frequency ultrasound. Methods Totally 195 patients with thyroid lesions were examined on conventional high-frequency ultrasound pre-operatively. The evaluation was foucsed on the number and echo of thyroid nodules and the size, shape and distribution of calciifcation inside. Different calciifcation patterns were divided into 3 typestype 1 micro-calciifcation, type 2 coarse calciifcation, type 3 peripheral calciifcation. Results The calciifcation rate of thyroid malignant nodules 68.6%(81/118) was signiifcantly higher than that of benign nodules 40.0%(56/140) (χ2=21.096, P0.05). The incidence of type 3 calcification in malignant lesions 3.7%(3/81) was lower than that of benign nodules 21.4%(12/56) (χ2=10.669, P<0.05). The malignancy incidence of solitary thyroid nodule 85.3%(58/68) and extremely low echo nodules with calciifcation 76.2%(48/63) was higher than that of multiple thyroid nodules 33.3%(23/69) and other echo nodules 44.6%(33/74) (χ2=38.261, 14.057, both P<0.01). Conclusions There was potential risk of malignancy in each calciifcation of thyroid nodules. Different calciifcation types had important value for differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules.