Shear wave elasticity by tracing total nodule showed high reproducibility and concordance with fibrosis in thyroid cancer

BACKGROUND: Although shear wave elastography (SWE) is reported to be useful in detecting malignant thyroid nodules, it shows a wide range of cut-off values of elasticity index (EI) in detecting malignant nodules. The cause of discrepancy remains unclear. Fibrosis of the tumors is known to increase the EI in SWE, and matching of SWE and surgical histopathology has not been fully illustrated in thyroid cancer. We aimed to evaluate the reproducibility of the new total nodular region of interest (ROI) method excluding the subjective features of focal circular ROI placement and to determine the lesion that causes the elevation of EI on SWE and on histopathology. METHODS: A total of 29 thyroid cancers from 28 patients were included. We evaluated the reproducibility of EI in the new total nodular ROI using Q-Box Trace program and compared the EI in focal nodular ROI using a 3-mm circular area. We analyzed the correlation between fibrosis and EI. RESULT: The coefficient of variation (CV) of the intrarater assay was significantly lower in total nodular ROI than in focal nodular ROI within the image in rater 1 (1.7% vs. 13.4%, p < 0.001) and in rater 2 (1.4% vs. 16.9%, p < 0.001) and in different images in rater 1 (7.6% vs. 12.3%, p = 0.040) and in rater 2 (7.5% vs. 19.8%, p = 0.004). Moreover, CV of the interrater assay showed similar results (14.9% vs. 19%, p = 0.030). Interrater intraclass correlation coefficient showed better agreement in total nodular ROI than in focal nodular ROI (0.863 vs. 0.783). The degree of fibrosis on histopathology showed significant correlations with EI (E(Mean), p < 0.001; E(Max), p = 0.027), and the location of fibrosis was concordant with the high EI area on SWE. CONCLUSION: Our study revealed that the new total nodular ROI method showed higher reproducibility and better agreement in intra- and interrater assay than the focal nodular ROI method, suggesting a valuable and standardized method in clinical practice. Moreover, our results showed that fibrosis in the histopathology increased EI on SWE and might lead to the discrepancy of the cut-off values in detecting thyroid cancer.