Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Ultrasound has become an indispensable diagnostic modality in the evaluation of the risk of malignancy of a thyroid nodule.

Objective: Identify the predictive factors of malignancy in thyroid nodules on ultrasound.

Methods: This is a retrospective study including 333 patients diagnosed with thyroid nodules and operated between 2010 and 2020. A significance threshold of 0.05 was adopted for the statistical analysis.

Results: The mean age of the patients was 44 years, predominantly females (88.3%). A thyroid cancer was diagnosed in 43 cases. The most common histological types were papillary carcinoma (83%) and vesicular carcinoma (14%). Predictive factors of malignancy were: solitary nodule (P= 0,01), cervical lymph node metastasis (P= 0,017), size > 4 cm (P<0,001), solid nodule (P<0,001), hypoechogenic nodule (P= 0,004), central vascularization (P<0,001), central and peripheral vascularization (P= 0,006), microcalcifications (P<0,001).

Conclusion: Although the vast majority of thyroid nodules are benign, a small proportion are cancers. Several predictive factors can evaluate the risk of malignancy of a thyroid nodule, however, predictive factors on ultrasonography are still the most important. The EU-TIRADS classification, is the most commonly used classification to stratify this risk of cancer in thyroid nodules. In the EUTIRADS classification, markedly hypoechoic, non-oval shape, irregular margins and microcalcifications are the only predictive factors included.