Certain Conventional Ultrasound Characteristics May Eliminate The Need For Some Minimally-Invasive Thyroid Biopsies

Main Category: MRI / PET / Ultrasound
Also Included In: Radiology / Nuclear Medicine
Article Date: 05 May 2010 - 0:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

Instead of referring patients for ultrasound-guided biopsies, physicians may now be able to rely on certain conventional ultrasound characteristics to determine the pathology of some thyroid nodules, according to a study to be presented at the ARRS 2010 Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. Ultrasound imaging is non-invasive and involves exposing part of the body to high-frequency ultrasound waves to produce pictures of inside the body.

"Thyroid nodules affect more than 50 percent of the population, and statistically more than 85 percent of them are incidental and benign," said Barry Sacks, MD, lead author of the study. "Unfortunately, this means millions of patients are undergoing unnecessary biopsies as doctors are finding a very low number of cancers. This is an enormous cost burden and provokes a lot of unnecessary anxiety for patients," said Sacks.

"The purpose of our study, performed at MetroWest Medical Center in Natick, MA, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, was to determine whether conventional ultrasound alone could predict a specific nodule type - aiding differentiation between benign and malignant thyroid nodules," he said.

"Specifically, we reviewed the accuracy of conventional ultrasound comparing it to the final pathology determined by ultrasound-guided biopsy," said Sacks. Of the predicted benign lesions, ultrasound prediction was correct in 89 percent of the benign cases. Of the lesions that were highly suspicious for malignancy, ultrasound prediction was correct in 94 percent of the cases.

"Our data suggest that subsequent triage of some thyroid nodules may be able to be performed solely by ultrasound appearance which will allow us to dramatically reduce the number of unnecessary thyroid nodule biopsies performed," said Sacks.

This study will be presented on Wednesday, May 5, at 2:00 p.m.

Source
American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS)

• Additional
• References
• Citations