Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Autoimmune thyroid diseases are among of the most important causes of thyroid disfunction. Chronic Autoimmune Thyroiditis (CAT)and Graves’ Disease (GD) are the major causes of hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism, respectively.

Aim: The aim of this studywas to evaluate the efficiency of strain elastography in the differential diagnosis of Chronic Autoimmune Thyroiditis (CAT) and Graves’ disease.

Material: In the study were included a total of 27 randomized patients with CAT (six males and 21 females withmean age 41.56 ± 13.59), 12 patients with GD (three males and nine females with mean age 37.58 ± 12.47) and 19 with normalhealthy thyroids (four males and 15 females with mean age 36.16 ± 13.26 ).

Method: All 58 subjects underwent clinical examination, hormonal and immunological evaluation and conventional ultrasonography. For all the cases real-time strain elastography was performed by using HITACHI Preirus machine with a 5–15 multifrequency linear probe. The strain ratio was estimated by evaluating both thyroid lobes compared with sternocleidomastoid muscle on the same side.

Results: The strain ratios (SRs) (mean ± standard deviation) of patients with CAT, GD and control group were 3.7 ± 0.83; 2.15 ± 0.28 and 0.87 ± 0.2. Ranked in ascending order, SR values were: control group < Graves’ disease < Chronic Autoimmune Thyroiditis. Statistically significant (P < 0.05) differences regarding thyroid stiffness were found between the groups. The strain index ratio was higher both in CAT and GD than the control group.

Conclusion: Identifying different degrees of stiffness using strain elastography can help differential diagnosis of thyroid diffuse diseases.

Keywords: strain elastography, Graves disease, Chronic autoimmune tyroiditis, diffuse thyroid pathology, strain ratio.