Research Article Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging: A New Tool for the

Copyright © 2014 Yi-Feng Zhang et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Purpose. To evaluate the diagnostic performance of ARFI imaging in differentiating between benign andmalignant thyroid nodules <1 cm.Materials and Methods. 173 pathologically proven thyroid nodules (77 benign, 96 malignant) in 157 patients were included in this study. Receiver-operating characteristic curve (ROC) analyses were performed to assess the diagnostic performance of conventional ultrasound (US) and ARFI imaging in papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC). The independent risk factors for predicting PTMC were evaluated. Results. The mean SWV value of benign and malignant thyroid nodules were 2.57 ± 0.79m/s (range: 0.90–4.92m/s) and 3.88 ± 2.24m/s (range: 1.49–9.00m/s)