Quantitative Assessment of Thyroid Gland Vascularization With Vascularization Index Using Color Superb Microvascular Imaging in Pediatric Patients With Hashimoto Thyroiditis

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the vascularization index (VI) obtained using superb microvascular imaging (SMI) technique in the diagnosis of Hashimoto thyroiditis (HT). The thyroid glands of 80 patients with HT and 107 healthy, asymptomatic participants were examined using SMI. The thyroid parenchyma echogenicity was evaluated, and the thyroid gland volume was measured. Vascularization index measurements were performed by manually drawing the contours of the thyroid parenchyma using the free region of interest with color 2-dimensional SMI VI mode. The quantitative VI values of the patients and the asymptomatic group were compared. Correlations between VI values and thyroid autoantibodies and thyroid hormone levels were analyzed. The mean VI value of the thyroid gland was 4.74% ± 1.96% in the asymptomatic group and 12.45% ± 5.87% in HT patients with a statistically significant difference (P < 0.001). Hashimoto thyroiditis can be diagnosed with 86.3% sensitivity and 82.2% specificity when 6.00% VI value was designated as the cutoff value. There was a positive significant correlation between the VI value and the thyroid-stimulating hormone, antithyroglobulin antibodies, anti–thyroid peroxidase antibody levels (P < 0.05); however, no significant correlation was found between the VI values and thyroglobulin and free thyroxine levels (P > 0.05). There was a significant negative correlation between the VI values and the parenchyma echogenicity and positive significant correlation between the thyroid gland volume and the antithyroglobulin antibody and anti–thyroid peroxidase antibody levels (P < 0.05). The VI obtained using the SMI technique can be effectively used as an imaging method for the diagnosis of HT because of its high sensitivity and specificity in representing objective, quantitative numerical values.

Discrimination of fetal intracranial mass and hemorrhage via superb microvascular imaging in a case and review of literature

“…SMI is a new imaging method of vascularization which allows us to vizualize very slow BF and microvascular structures eliminating motion artefacts (5,6). There are studies in the literature reporting the superiority of SMI when compared to other CDITs (11,13,14,15,16,17). In our case report; we have detected the vascularity of fetal intracranial mass clearly with SMI when compared to the CDITs.…”

Evaluation of parenchymal vascularity of the thyroid gland with vascularization index by color superb microvascular imaging in patients with Graves’ disease

“…The authors reported that the median VI of the thyroid gland was 7.95 (5.98-9.7) in asymptomatic volunteers, and 13.5 (8.7-18) in children with Hashimoto thyroiditis (p <0.001). Durmaz et al (13) studied the VI (21) evaluated the VI by cSMI in pediatric patients with GD (n = 34) and Hashimoto thyroiditis (n = 37) in another study. Their results for median VI levels of the control, GD, and Hashimoto thyroiditis groups were given separately for the right and left lobes, and were equal to: 8 and 8; 11 and 13; and 25 and 26, respectively.…”

Quantitative Musculoskeletal Ultrasound

“…It is expressed as a numerical value ranging from 0 to 100. The clinical value of the vascular index was recently studied in the diagnosis of Hashimoto's thyroiditis 79 and breast lesions. 80 Durmaz et al 79 selected the image with the highest amount of vascular signal in a 5-s video of a US scan in patients affected by Hashimoto's thyroiditis.…”