Value of elastography in predicting central lymph nodes metastasis of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma / 中华医学超声杂志（电子版）

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the value of elasticity score and elasticity strain ratio (SR) in predicting the central lymph nodes metastasis of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC). Methods This study conducted a retrospective analysis of ultrasonography ifndings of 236 thyroid lesions from 208 patients. All of them underwent surgery in Ruijin Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University from June 2012 to March 2013. Totally 82 PTMC from 82 patients were included in this study. Among them 12 patients with 12 PTMC had central lymph nodes metastasis. The elasticity score and SR were compared between metastasis and non-metastasis groups, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of SR was calculated. Results The differences of PTMC elasticity score between two groups showed no statistical signiifcance (χ2=5.00, P=0.08). The average SR of the group with central lymph nodes metastasis is 2.44±0.61, which is higher than the group without lymph nodes metastasis whose average SR is 1.67±0.42. Differences are statistically signiifcant (t=5.5, P=0.00). The area under curve of SR-ROC curve was 0.847. Using 2.01 as cutoff of SR, the sensitivity, speciifcity, accuracy of predicting central lymph nodes metastasis was 83.3%, 81.4%, 78.6%respectively. Conclusion The SR but not elasticity score could be a meaningful indicator for predicting lymph nodes metastasis.