• Asima Idrees, Rafia Shahzad, Ismat Fatima, and Abubaker Shahid.
• Department of Radiology, INMOL Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan.
• J Coll Physicians Surg Pak. 2020 Apr 1; 30 (4): 369-372.

ObjectiveTo find out the diagnostic accuracy of strain elastography in differentiating between benign and malignant thyroid nodules taking cytology as a gold standard.Study DesignDescriptive study.Place And Duration Of StudyRadiology Department, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Oncology (INMOL), Lahore, Pakistan, from February to July 2019.MethodologyA total of 110 patients aged 18-80 years of either gender having one or more solid nodules, in thyroid lobe on conventional ultrasound examination, were included. Patients with cystic nodules, nodules that constitute more than 75% volume of thyroid lobe and thyroid nodules with peripheral calcification were excluded. All the patients then underwent strain ultrasound elastography with high-resolution unit equipped with a linear array probe which was centered at 7.5 MHz. Sonoelastographic findings were correlated with cytology.ResultsOverall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy of sonoelastography in differentiating between benign and malignant thyroid nodules taking cytology as gold standard was 90.0%, 90.0%, 91.53%, 88.24% and 90.0%, respectively. Optimal cutoff to differentiate between malignant and benign nodules for elasticity strain using ROC curve was 2.57. Area under the curve (AUC) was found to be 0.933 (0.879-0.987) p<0.001.ConclusionSonoelastography is the non-invasive modality of choice with high diagnostic accuracy in differentiating between malignant and benign nodules. Key Words: Sonoelastography, Strain elastography, Thyroid nodule, Benign, Malignant, Sensitivity, Specificity.

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