Diagnostic efficacy of TI-RADS combined with shear wave elastography in distinguishing benign and malignant thyroid nodules

HOU Yan; TAO Peng; CHEN Yanan

doi:10.20258/j.cnki.1006-9011.2025.10.011

Abstract：Objective To investigate the diagnostic efficacy of thyroid imaging-reporting and data system(TI-RADS)com-bined with shear wave elastography(SWE)in distinguishing benign and malignant thyroid nodules.Methods 72 patients with thyroid were selected.Based on the pathological results,they were divided into malignant group(n=25)and benign group(n=47).The general information,maximum modulus of elasticity(Emax)and average modulus of elasticity(Emean)obtained from SWE results were compared between two groups.And the pathological properties of thyroid nodules were compared among differ-ent TI-RADS grades.The area under curve(AUC)of receiver operating curve(ROC)was performed to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of TI-RADS and SWE in distinguishing benign and malignant thyroid nodules.Results There were no significant differ-ences in general information such as the gender,age and maximum diameter of nodules between the malignant and benign groups(P>0.05).There was a significant difference in the malignant rate of thyroid nodules among different TI-RADS grades(P<0.05),and the malignant rate gradually increased with the increase of TI-RADS grades.The Emax and Emean in the malignant group were significantly higher than those in the benign group(P<0.05).The ROC curve analysis results showed that the sensitivity,speci-ficity and AUC of TI-RADS in diagnosing benign and malignant nodules were 84.0%,85.1%and 0.858,respectively.The opti-mal thresholds for Emax and Eman were 48.3 kPa and 39.8 kPa,respectively.The sensitivity,specificity,and AUC of Emax were 88.0%,74.5%and 0.819,respectively.The sensitivity,specificity,and AUC of Emean were 80.0%,78.7%and 0.798,respec-tively.The sensitivity,specificity,and AUC of TI-RADS grading combined with SWE in diagnosing benign and malignant nod-ules were 84.0%,93.6%and 0.903,respectively,and its diagnostic efficacy was higher than TI-RADS grading or SWE examina-tion alone.Conclusions Both TI-RADS and SWE help clinical diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules,and their combination can further improve the differential diagnostic efficiency.