Drashty Rameshbhai Chauhan, Rupal Bhimabhai Vadhiya, Bhavya Jayeshbhai Chauhan, Jigna Thakorbhai Patel
BACKGROUND: Thyroid lesions are the most common abnormality in the endocrine system. The importance of imaging is that cancers of the thyroid must be differentiated from the much more frequent benign adenomas and multinodular goiters.
METHODS: Study of 97 patients was carried out. All patients diagnosed and suspicious of thyroid lesions were included in my study. Patients referred to the radiology department for USG and/or CT scan thorax investigations, and found to have thyroid lesion, were included in this study.
RESULTS: In our study, there was a higher incidence of all thyroid diseases in females. The overall sex ratio was M:F = 1:4.7. Most of the patients were in the 31-40 yrs. age group. The largest group was comprised of non-toxic goitre followed by thyroid neoplasms. Most of the patients had multinodular type of goiter followed by solitary nodular goiter. Simple diffuse goiter was seen only in 10.5% cases. Majority of the patients showed mixed consistency, followed closely by solid consistency. Majority of the malignant lesions was papillary type of carcinoma (46%) followed by follicular carcinoma (20%) and metastasis (13.3%).
CONCLUSIONS:USG had high sensitivity of 86.6% and specificity of 96.5% in differentiating benign from malignant thyroid lesions which was better than that of CT scan which had a sensitivity of 66.6% and specificity of 80%. CT scan was found to be useful in staging of thyroid malignancies.
