The application of Virtual Touch tissue quantification (VTQ) in diagnosis of thyroid lesions: A preliminary study

Objectives

Virtual Touch tissue quantification (VTQ) is a quantified ultrasound (US) acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging method that provides numerical measurements (wave-velocity values) of tissue stiffness. The purpose of this study was to detect whether VTQ could be applied to differentiate between benign and malignant thyroid lesions.

Methods

Healthy subjects’ thyroid tissue and thyroid lesions were examined by VTQ to analyze their elasticity after conventional ultrasound. All the thyroid lesions were analyzed pathologically after surgery and correlated the VTQ values with the pathological results.

Results

The VTQ value of healthy thyroid tissue, the benign lesions, and the malignant lesions were 1.69 ± 0.41 m/s, 2.03 ± 0.42 m/s, and 3.10 ± 1.08 m/s, respectively. The VTQ value of the malignant lesions was higher than that of the healthy thyroid tissue and the benign lesions (both p < 0.001). The VTQ value of the benign lesions was higher than that of the healthy thyroid tissue (p < 0.001). With a cutoff value of 2.42 m/s, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value for differentiating between the benign and the malignancy lesions were 80.00%, 89.23%, 87.05%, 69.56%, and 93.54%, respectively.

Conclusions

VTQ could provide quantitative elasticity measurements, which might play an important role in differentiating between benign and malignant thyroid lesions.