Objectives: Preoperative localization of parathyroid adenomas in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism facilitates targeted surgery. We assessed the sensitivity of 3-dimensional (3D) sonography for preoperative localization of abnormal parathyroid glands.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of patients who underwent parathyroidectomy for primary hyperparathyroidism at a single site at our institution. We compared preoperative 2-dimensional (2D) sonography, 3D sonography, and sestamibi scans with final gland localization at surgery. Two readers reviewed the sonograms to assess inter-reader variability.
Results: From January 2010 through April 2015, 52 patients underwent parathyroidectomy after preoperative 2D sonography, 3D sonography, and sestamibi scans. Three-dimensional sonography had sensitivity of 88-92% compared with 69-71% for 2D sonography for gland localization. In patients in whom sonography and sestamibi scans localized abnormalities to the same side, the sensitivities were 100% (43 of 43) for 3D sonography and 96% (48 of 50) for 2D sonography. Three-dimensional sonography had significantly higher sensitivity for localization of glands smaller than 500 mg compared with 2D sonography (88% versus 58%; P = .012). There was better inter-reader agreement between the radiologists when using 3D sonography (κ = 0.65) compared with 2D sonography (κ = 0.41).
Conclusions: We found a significantly higher sensitivity and better inter-reader agreement for 3D sonography compared with 2D sonography for preoperative identification of abnormal parathyroid glands, especially among smaller glands.
Keywords: 3-dimensional sonography; head and neck ultrasound; hyperparathyroidism; parathyroid adenoma.
© 2017 by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.