Abstract

Although ultrasound has a high sensitivity for detecting thyroid nodules, its diagnostic performance for differentiating between benign and malignant nodules is quite poor. There is no one feature or combination of features in conventional ultrasonography that is sufficiently sensitive or specific to identify all malignant nodules. After obtaining approval and clearance from the institutional ethics committee, the patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled for the study. On strain elastography color scoring among 21 malignant nodules, 16 nodules had an elasticity score >3 and remaining 5 nodules had a score of <3 on elastography color scoring. However, among 39 benign nodules all of them showed soft elasticity, that is score of <3 but 5 of the malignant lesions also showed score of <3. On strain elastography on strain ratio 19 (32% of total patients) patients were suspicious of malignancy which had a ratio of more than 2.8. The rest 41 (68%) were categorized as benign which a had a ratio of less than 2.8.

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