Acute transient swelling of the thyroid following fine-needle aspiration: A case series.

Acute transient swelling (ATS) of the thyroid is a rare complication following fine-needle aspiration (FNA) of thyroid nodules. We present 31 cases with 35 nodules encountered at our institute and reported in the literature, to provide further information. The incidence rate in our institute was 0.46%. Of these nodules, 74.3% (26/35) were solid, 65.7% (23/35) exhibited hypervascularity, and 77.2% (27/35) were benign or follicular neoplasms. Although most cases (87.1%, 27/31) occurred within 2 h after FNA, four patients experienced delayed ATS after 7 h to 2 days. Therefore, awareness of this complication, especially its delayed occurrence, should be raised.

Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound for Biliary Ischemia: A Possible New Clinical Indication.

OBJECTIVES: Biliary perfusion is considered to contribute to biliary diseases, but routine imaging methods are insufficient to show it. This research investigated the ability of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) for biliary perfusion in a biliary ischemia model. METHODS: This research consisted of 2 parts. First, to determine whether CEUS enhancement of the tiny biliary wall represents biliary perfusion, a vascular tracer was used as a reference to evaluate the consistency with the enhancement of the biliary wall on CEUS and the staining by the vascular tracer under the conditions of occluded and recovered biliary perfusion. In the second part, the ability of CEUS for biliary ischemia was further evaluated with microvascular density measurement as a reference. The enhancement patterns were assigned CEUS scores, in which higher scores meant more decreased enhancement, and the diagnostic ability of CEUS was assessed by a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. RESULTS: The biliary wall was unstained by the vascular tracer and nonenhanced on CEUS when biliary perfusion was interrupted and was stained blue and enhanced after recovery. The biliary wall in the ischemia surgery group showed lower microvascular density measurements (P < .001), decreased enhancement levels (P < .001), and higher CEUS scores (P < .001). When a CEUS score of 3 or higher (obvious decrease of the biliary wall to hypoenhancement or nonenhancement in the arterial phase or rapid wash-out to nonenhancement in the portal venous phase) was applied, CEUS had sensitivity of 87.8%, specificity of 98.3%, accuracy of 93.8%, and an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.98. CONCLUSIONS: Contrast enhancement of the biliary wall on CEUS represents biliary perfusion and has reasonably good diagnostic performance for biliary ischemia in an experimental animal setting.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography to evaluate risk factors for short-term and long-term outcomes after liver transplantation: A pilot prospective study.

PURPOSE: To evaluate whether Doppler ultrasonography (DUS) and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) can identify liver donation after brain death (DBD) and cardiac death (DCD) with the risk of developing short-term primary graft dysfunction (PGD) or arterial and biliary complications within 1 year. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Consecutive DBD and DCD donors who underwent DUS/CEUS examinations before surgical procurement from February 2016 to June 2018 at our institution were included. The US and CEUS images of each donor liver were analysed, and the parameters were recorded. RESULTS: The mean time for US examination was 32 min (range, 20-59 min), and all donors tolerated the examination well. In terms of short-term outcomes, among the 52 eligible donor livers, 20 (38.5 %) of their recipients developed PGD. The multivariable analysis showed that decreased enhancement of donor livers on CEUS (OR = 15.976, 95 % CI: 1.652-154.628, P = 0.017) and high recipient model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) scores (OR = 1.050, 95 % CI: 1.004-1.099, P = 0.034) before liver transplantation (LT) were independent factors of PGD. In contrast, for long-term complications, among the 48 eligible donor livers, 16 (33.3 %) developed arterial or biliary complications within 1 year. The multivariable analysis did not show any independent factors of arterial or biliary complications within 1 year. CONCLUSIONS: A decrease in enhancement on CEUS is an independent risk factor for poor short-term outcomes of LT. CEUS may be promising for predicting post-LT outcomes of critically ill donors effectively and safely by evaluating the haemodynamic changes in DBD and DCD donor livers.

Doppler ultrasonography and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography to evaluate liver allograft discard: A pilot prospective study.

BACKGROUND: Broad hemodynamic changes, is believed to have a profoundly damaging effect on donor livers after brain death (DBD) or cardiac death (DCD). It remains unclear whether Doppler ultrasonography (DUS) and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS), the imaging modalities to evaluate perfusion, could provide more information of liver discarded. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the ability of DUS and CEUS to predict the risk of DBD or DCD liver discarded. METHODS: The consecutive DBD or DCD donors with DUS/CEUS examinations before surgical procurement from February 2016 to June 2018 at our institution were included. The US and CEUS images of each donor liver were analyzed and the parameters were recorded. RESULTS: Among the 67 eligible donor livers, 15 (22.4%) were discarded and 52 (77.6%) were used. The discarded livers showed prolonged SAT of hepatic artery (0.08s vs 0.06s, OR = 2.169, P = 0.008) on DUS, less cases with homogeneous enhancement (40.0% vs 73.1%, OR = 0.243, P = 0.028) on CEUS, more cases with decreased enhancement (53.3% vs 19.2%, OR = 4.800, P = 0.009), and less difference of the peak time between portal vein and liver parenchymal (0.5s vs 6.7s, OR = 0.917, P = 0.034). The multivariable analysis showed that donor liver with prolonged SAT of hepatic artery (OR = 7.304, 95% CI: 1.195-44.655, P = 0.031) and decreased enhancement (OR = 2.588, 95% CI: 1.234-5.426, P = 0.012) were independent factors of liver discarded. CONCLUSIONS: DUS/CEUS could be applied as a promising predictive tool to screen high-risk liver donors. The prolonged SAT of hepatic artery on DUS and the decrease of liver donor in enhancement on CEUS, indicating hemodynamic changes in DBD and DCD donor livers, were risk factors of liver discarded.