The Value Of Overall And Partial Strain Ratio In Ultrasound Elastography On Differentiating Diagnosis Of Benign And Malignant Thyroid Nodules

Objective： To explore the value of overall and partial strain ratio method inultrasound elastography in differentiating diagnosis benign and malignantthyroid nodules．Methods: Ultrasound elastography was performed in90cases of thyroidnodules selected for surgical treatment, all of them are single solid nodules,determine the SR of overall and partial nodules and normal thyroid tissuearound the same level respectively. Using the pathological diagnosis and withit as the gold standard, a receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve wasused to identify the cut-off point for differential diagnosis of benign andmalignant thyroid nodules．Results: The overall and partial mean SR value of malignant lesions wassignificantly greater than that of benign lesions(Overall SR:2.12±0.50inbenign、4.22±1.49in malignant)、（Partial SR:2.52±0.50in benign、5.15±1.35in malignant） respectively (P <0.05). For the overall SR, the best cut—offpoint of ROC curve for benign and malignant nodules was2.66,the accuracy，sensitivity and specificity were90.2%、89.8%、90%,respectively;for thepartial SR,the best cut—off point of ROC curve for benign and malignant nodules was3.36,the accuracy，sensitivity and specificity were97.6%、93.9%、95.6%，respectively.Conclusions: Ultrasonic elastic strain ratio could be used as importantreference index of the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroidnodules,but there is no statisitical correlation between the partial SR and theoverall SR.