The use of conventional and color ultrasound in the differentiation of thyroid diseases

Abstract EN

Thyroid diseases has become widely distributed in the general population, examined and investigated by different methods.

Due to its anatomically superficial location, with its informative, safe,non-invasive characters, Ultrasound has become an indispensable tool in evaluating different thyroid diseases, describing their natures, helping in their differentiation.

The objective of the study is to evaluateul trasonically different thyroid diseases , characterizing their natures , describing their consistencies, internal vascularities, and the state of thyroid tissues surrounding the nodular form of them, helping to reach their diagnosis , compared with the fine needle aspiration (FNA) results.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted from May 2014–February 2015.

A total of 100 patients with diffuse and nodular thyroid diseases, were collected between 18 –58years age, inDuhok city.

Examined by Conventional and Color ultrasound , divided into diffuse, nodular, mixed (combination of diffuse and nodular ) forms , the nodules were divided by their consistencies into (solid, cystic, mixed) , echogenicities were described as (hyperechoic, mixed , hypoechoic) relative to strap muscles , their surrounding halo of reactive thyroid tissues were recorded , their internal vascular arrangement also was detected, compared with FNA results , to reach their exact diagnosis.

Thyroid diseases were more commonly seen in females, all of the diffuse form of thyroid diseases were of chronic inflammatory and benign natures , in the nodular form of thyroid diseases most of the solid nodules and all of the cystic lesions seen to have benign behavior, hypoechogenicity, microcalcification , internal central vascularity and absent halo sign (related to thyroid tissue reaction ) were higher in malignant thyroid nodules.

Ultrasound provide useful informations about the behavior of different thyroid diseases, significant correlations were found between different ultrasonic thyroid findings with their final diagnosis, incomparison with FNA results.