Ultrasonographic differentiation of medullary thyroid carcinoma from papillary thyroid carcinoma: quantitative comparison of morphologic features and different TIRADS risk categorizations.

Abstract

Introduction: Comparative Analysis of Ultrasonographic Features and Risk Stratification of Kwak-TIRADS, C-TIRADS, and ACR-TIRADS in Medullary versus Papillary Thyroid Carcinomas.

Objective: To compare ultrasonographic characteristics and Risk categorization of medullary thyroid carcinomas (MTCs)and papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTCs) with three Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data Systems (TIRADS), TIRADS proposed by Kwak (Kwak-TIRADS), the Chinese-TIRADS (C-TIRADS) and the 2017 American College of Radiology management guidelines (ACR-TIRADS).

Methods: This retrospective study was approved by the Ruijin hospital institutional review board.118 MTC nodules in 96 patients and 511 PTC nodules in 381 patients were included and that all were surgically and pathologically confirmed. Age, size and multiplicity were analyzed by independent sample t test. Sex and sonographic features, including position, composition, echogenicity, shape, border, margin, microcalcification, vascularization distribution and degree were evaluated byχ²orFisher exact test. Each thyroid nodule was categorized by Kwak-TIRADS, C-TIRADS and ACR-TIRADS, and the diagnostic performances was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

Results: MTCs had a large size, and most of them were larger than 1 cm (P = 0.000). Female patients were more common in this study(P = 0.035). There was no statistical difference between MTCs and PTCs in age and multiplicity (P > 0.05). The significant statistical differences appeared in various ultrasound features between PTCs and MTCs (P < 0.05).C-TIRADS had the highest diagnostic efficacy (AUC = 0.721), followed by Kwak-TIRADS (AUC = 0.695) and the lowest ACR-TIRADS (AUC = 0.523) (P < 0.0001). Best cut-off point for Kwak-TIRADS, C-TIRADS and ACR-TIRADS were 4c, 4c and TR5. Among the three types of TIRADS, C-TIRADS had the highest sensitivity (66.73%) and negative predictive value (NPV) (32.00%), while KWAK-TIRADS had the highest specificity (72.03%) and positive predictive value (PPV) (90.52%).

Conclusion: MTCs exhibited malignant sonographic features similar to PTCs, but also had their own unique characteristics. C-TIRADS was more suitable for distinguishing MTCs from PTCs than the Kwak-TIRADS and ACR-TIRADS, but their diagnostic performance values were not ideal.