Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Patients with thyroiditis often have sialadenitis. Radioactive iodine therapy (RAIT) sialadenitis could lower the patient’s quality of life. However, it had not been investigated about the occurrence of RAIT sialadenitis and the presence of underlying thyroiditis. Therefore, we analyzed the preoperative thyroid ultrasound (US) with radiomics to figure out the occurrence of the RAIT sialadenitis.

Materials and Methods: In this retrospective single-centered study, patients who underwent the preoperative thyroid US for thyroid cancer, subsequent total thyroidectomy, and RAIT were identified between January 2012 and December 2020. A neuroradiologist qualitatively rated the echogenicity and echotexture of the thyroid. Moreover, radiomics analysis was performed for the region of interest in the thyroid using PyRadiomics

Results: Twenty-five patients with sialadenitis and 56 patients with sialadenitis were enrolled in this study. Both groups with or without sialadenitis show no difference in the statistical significance in terms of age, sex, TNM stage by AJCC 8^th Ed., the total dose, and numbers of the RAIT. In the qualitative analysis, there were no significant statistical differences in the echogenicity and echotexture of the thyroid of both groups. In the LASSO regression for the radiomics analysis, the max probability from the gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) was only selected (coefficient -0.042).

Conclusion: It is difficult to directly correlate thyroiditis itself with the future occurrence of RAIT sialadenitis only with clinical factors or qualitative analysis of thyroid US. The role of radiomics could help the access between thyroiditis and RAIT sialadenitis.

Keywords: Radioactive iodine therapy (RAIT); Sialadenitis; Thyroid cancer; Thyroiditis