Research Article

Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging: A New Tool for the Diagnosis of Papillary Thyroid Microcarcinoma

Table 2

Pathology types and virtual tissue imaging scores of the thyroid nodules.

VTI
Elastography
Score
Benign nodulesMalignant nodules
Nodule
goiter ( )
Follicular
adenoma ( )
Hashimoto
thyroiditis ( )
Total* 
( )
Papillary
carcinoma ( )

1 ( )10011
2 ( )23022519
3 ( )250103529
4 ( )10031330
5 ( )200215
6 ( )01012

Caption: In comparison with malignant nodules, ,   .
The distribution of VTI score (score 1 to score 6) of benign nodules was significant different from that of the malignant ones. Most of benign nodules were classified to be score 1 to score 3 on VTI score and most of malignant nodules were classified to be score 4 to score 6 ( , ). But the distribution of VTI score of nodular goiters was not significantly different from that of Hashimoto nodules ( , ).