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Three‐Dimensional Ultrasonography for Volume Measurement of Thyroid Nodules in Children
Author(s) -
Lyshchik Andrej,
Drozd Valentina,
Schloegl Susanne,
Reiners Christoph
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of ultrasound in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1550-9613
pISSN - 0278-4297
DOI - 10.7863/jum.2004.23.2.247
Subject(s) - medicine , ultrasonography , repeatability , thyroid nodules , nodule (geology) , thyroid , nuclear medicine , radiology , significant difference , volume (thermodynamics) , mathematics , paleontology , statistics , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
Objective. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of thyroid nodule volume measurements performed by 2‐ and 3‐dimensional ultrasonography and to evaluate the dependence of volume measurement results on nodule size and echographic characteristics. Methods. Results of multiple 2‐ and 3‐dimensional ultrasonographic volume measurements of thyroid nodules in 102 children with different variants of thyroid nodular disease were reviewed retrospectively. The standardized difference, within‐observer variability, and repeatability were estimated for both 2‐ and 3‐dimensional ultrasonography. The mean age of the patients ± SD in the examined group was 14.9 ± 2.8 years; the mean volume of thyroid nodules was 0.78 ± 0.13 mL. Results. The SD of the normalized difference for 3‐dimensional ultrasonography (2.8%) showed the clear superiority of its accuracy over 2‐dimensional ultrasonography (15.9%; F test, P < .01). Intraobserver variability and repeatability for both examined methods had significant dependence on the nodule outline. For 2‐dimensional ultrasonography, the intraobserver variability increased from 14.0% in nodules with a regular outline to 24.5% in those with an irregular outline ( P < .001), and for 3‐dimensional ultrasonography, it increased from 5.1% to 9.3% ( P < .001). Intraobserver repeatability dropped from 85.4% in regular nodules to 74.6% in irregular nodules ( P < .001) for 2‐dimensional ultrasonography and from 94.7% to 90.4% ( P < .001) for 3‐dimensional ultrasonography. Conclusions. Volume measurements by 3‐dimensional ultrasonography are more accurate, showing lower intraobserver variability and higher repeatability, than those made by 2‐dimensional ultrasonography with less dependence on nodule size and echographic characteristics.