Consistency of tumor sizes measured by sonographic and pathological examination in papillary thyroid carcinoma / 中国耳鼻咽喉头颈外科

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to evaluated the difference and consistency in tumor size measured by sonographic and pathological examination in papillary thyroid carcinoma(PTC).METHODS A total of 114 patients with PTC, including 122 malignant nodules, was collected from Hangzhou First People's Hospital between Jun 2012 and Jun 2014. The tumor sizes were measured by preoperative sonographic and postoperative pathologic evaluation. Pearson correlation analysis, paired t-test, and Bland-Altman plot were used to evaluate the correlation and consistency in tumor size measured by the two methods.RESULTS Pearson correlation analysis showed that the largest tumor size measured by sonography were positively correlated with pathologic size (r=0.957, P=0.000). Paired t-test showed that there were statistically difference between sonographic size and pathological size (8.24±5.06) mmvs (7.79±4.75) mm,P=0.001. The absolute difference value of the largest tumor size measured by the two methods was from zero to 6.5 mm, with the average of (1.03±1.14) mm. Bland-Altman analysis showed that the limits of agreement (LoA) of difference was from -2.41 mm to 3.33 mm, with the 95% confidence interval from -2.87 mm to 3.78 mm.Within the limit of the consistency, the maximum moduli was 2.9 mm.CONCLUSION There is a significant discrepancy between the preoperative sonographic and the pathologic size of the papillary thyroid carcinoma, which should be taken into account in clinical practice.