Contrast-enhanced CT histogram analysis in differentiating benign and malignant thyroid nodules / 中国医学影像技术

ABSTRACT

Objective: To explore the value of histogram features based on plain and enhanced CT for differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules. Methods: A total of 132 patients with 140 thyroid nodules confirmed by postoperative pathology were retrospectively analyzed. The level with the largest axial focus was selected, and then Mazda software was used to sketch ROI along the edge of focus and perform histogram analysis to obtain 9 parameters. The parameters were compared between benign and malignant nodules, and then statistically significant gray-scale histogram parameters were used to analyze their value of differentiating benign and malignant thyroid nodules. Results: On plain CT, the mean value, the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles of malignant nodules were higher than those of benign ones (all P0.05). Among the parameters of CT plain and enhanced histogram, the 10th percentile AUC was the highest of 0.68, and the sensitivity of identifying benign and malignant thyroid nodules was 74.32%,and specificity was 62.12%. Conclusion: CT histogram analysis can be used as an important auxiliary means to identify benign and malignant thyroid nodules.