Diagnostic performance of simplified TI-RADS for malignant thyroid nodules: comparison with 2017 ACR-TI-RADS and 2020 C-TI-RADS

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to propose a new TI-RADS and compare it with the American College of Radiology (2017 ACR)-TI-RADS and the 2020 Chinese (2020 C)-TI-RADS. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 749 thyroid nodules was performed. Based on the calculated odds ratio of ultrasonic signs between benign and malignant nodules, a new thyroid nodule score and malignancy rate were calculated. A receiver operating characteristic curve was drawn to analyze the new system’s effectiveness in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules and was compared with the 2020 C-TI-RADS and 2017 ACR-TI-RADS. Five ultrasound physicians with different qualifications graded another 123 thyroid nodules according to the 2017ACR-TI-RADS, 2020 C-TI-RADS, and the newly proposed TI-RADS. Intergroup and intragroup consistency was evaluated using the Kappa test and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) test. RESULTS: 1) The new thyroid nodule score was divided into 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 points, with malignancy rates of 1.52%, 7.69%, 38.24%, 76.00%, 90.75%, and 93.75%, respectively. Using 3 points as the cutoff value to diagnose benign and malignant thyroid nodules, the sensitivity and specificity were 94.03% and 67.39%, respectively, which were higher than those of the 2017 ACR-TI-RADS and 2020 C-TI-RADS. The simplified TI-RADS, namely, sTI-RADS, was established as follows: sTI-RADS 3 (0 points), malignancy rate < 2%; sTI-RADS 4a (1 point), malignancy rate 2–10%; sTI-RADS 4b (2 points), malignancy rate 10–50%; sTI-RADS 4 (3 points), malignancy rate 50–90%; and sTI-RADS 5 (4 and 5 points), malignancy rate > 90%. 2) Five ultrasound doctors graded thyroid nodules by the 2017 ACR-TI-RADS, 2020C-TI-RADS and sTI-RADS. Intragroup consistency was good among all tests; ICC were 0.86 (0.82–0.90), 0.84 (0.78–0.88), and 0.88 (0.84–0.91), respectively, while only sTI-RADS had good intergroup consistency. CONCLUSION: In summary, we proposed a new TI-RADS, namely, sTI-RADS, which was obtained using a simple assignment method with higher specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and Youden index than the 2017 ACR-TI-RADS and 2020 C-TI-RADS.