Ultrasound super-resolution imaging for the differential diagnosis of thyroid nodules: A pilot study

Ge Zhang; Jing Yu; Yu-Meng Lei; Jun-Rui Hu; Hai-Man Hu; Sevan Harput; Zhen-Zhong Guo; Xin-Wu Cui; Hua-Rong Ye

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.978164

Ultrasound super-resolution imaging for the differential diagnosis of thyroid nodules: A pilot study

Front Oncol. 2022 Oct 27:12:978164. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.978164. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ge Zhang^{1

2}, Jing Yu¹, Yu-Meng Lei¹, Jun-Rui Hu³, Hai-Man Hu⁴, Sevan Harput⁵, Zhen-Zhong Guo², Xin-Wu Cui⁶, Hua-Rong Ye¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Ultrasound, China Resources & Wisco General Hospital, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
² Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Occupational Hazard Identification and Control, Wuhan University of science and technology, Wuhan, China.
³ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, China.
⁵ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, London South Bank University, London, United Kingdom.
⁶ Department of Medical Ultrasound, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Objective: Ultrasound imaging provides a fast and safe examination of thyroid nodules. Recently, the introduction of super-resolution imaging technique shows the capability of breaking the Ultrasound diffraction limit in imaging the micro-vessels. The aim of this study was to evaluate its feasibility and value for the differentiation of thyroid nodules.

Methods: In this study, B-mode, contrast-enhanced ultrasound, and color Doppler flow imaging examinations were performed on thyroid nodules in 24 patients. Super-resolution imaging was performed to visualize the microvasculature with finer details. Microvascular flow rate (MFR) and micro-vessel density (MVD) within thyroid nodules were computed. The MFR and MVD were used to differentiate the benign and malignant thyroid nodules with pathological results as a gold standard.

Results: Super-resolution imaging (SRI) technique can be successfully applied on human thyroid nodules to visualize the microvasculature with finer details and obtain the useful clinical information MVD and MFR to help differential diagnosis. The results suggested that the mean value of the MFR within benign thyroid nodule was 16.76 ± 6.82 mm/s whereas that within malignant thyroid was 9.86 ± 4.54 mm/s. The mean value of the MVD within benign thyroid was 0.78 while the value for malignant thyroid region was 0.59. MFR and MVD within the benign thyroid nodules were significantly higher than those within the malignant thyroid nodules respectively (p < 0.01).

Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility of ultrasound super-resolution imaging to show micro-vessels of human thyroid nodules via a clinical ultrasound platform. The important imaging markers, such as MVD and MFR, can be derived from SRI to provide more useful clinical information. It has the potential to be a new tool for aiding differential diagnosis of thyroid nodules.

Keywords: contrast-enhanced ultrasound; microbubble; super-resolution; thyroid nodule; ultrasound imaging.