Aim: The evaluation of usefulness of color Doppler sonography and power Doppler sonography in the diagnostics of thyroid nodules with the low or absent uptake of (99m)Tc-pertechnate. Although scintigraphy is highly sensitive method in the diagnosis of cold nodules it is non-specific in the diagnostics of malignant changes of thyroid. We tried to investigate the possibility to improve the diagnostic accuracy of sonography.
Material and methods: 122 cold thyroid nodules were investigated with linear 7.5 Mhz Doppler probe. The flow pattern in power Doppler and color Doppler were correlated with cytologic and histopathologic examination.
Results: According to cytology, PD has better sensitivity and specificity than CD; consecutively-100% vs. 86.6% and 93.4% vs. 84.1%.
Conclusions: 1. Power Doppler can detect low blood flow in small blood vessels, observed in thyroid cancer. 2. Power Doppler allows the best nodules selection for fine-needle biopsy than color Doppler.