Evaluation of ultrasound application in diagnosis and clinical staging of thyroid cancers.

Objectives: The usage of Ultrasonography (US) in the diagnosis and management of patients with thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer is increasing. This method is also advocated for the pre-operative and post-operative diagnosis of cervical lymph node (LN) metastases. This article is trying to figure out the correlation between ultrasound features and pathological classification of thyroid carcinoma (TC). Materials and Methods: A total of 407 cases of patients with TC were selected from records between 2000 and 2006, which were used to analyze and compare the ultrasound features in different pathologic classification of TC. We grouped the US typing of TC according to the ultrasound features. Then, we implemented pre-surgery evaluation of TC by ultrasound assessment. Results: We classified these patients into six groups by ultrasound: (1) classical, (2) non-typical, (3) microminiaturize, (4) diffuse sclerosing, (5) medullary, and (6) undifferentiated. Ultrasonographic types of papillary TC: (1) classical, (2) microminiaturize, (3) diffuse, (4) cystic, (5) peripheral, (6) multi-nodules, (7) invasive, and (8) complicated Hashimoto. Grouping of the ultrasonic type of cervical LN metastasis: (1) cystic, (2) micro calcification, (3) macro-lymph, (4) microminiaturize, and (5) invasive. The ultrasound assessment of clinical staging had a higher sensitivity rate and specificity, and the accuracy rate of T stage was 93.9%. Conclusion: Ultrasound is a useful tool in the evaluation, characterization, quantification, and location of TC and cervical LN metastasis.