SynthesisEuropean radiology2021
Comparison of the diagnostic performances of US-guided fine needle aspiration cytology and thyroglobulin measurement for lymph node metastases in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma: a meta-analysis.
Synthesis in European radiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Explainable AI-Assisted Multimodal Ultrasound Radiomics for Preoperative Risk Stratification of Central Lymph Node Metastasis in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma.Journal of imaging informatics in medicine · 2026Article
- Prognostic value of FNA-Tg for local recurrence following lateral neck dissection in papillary thyroid carcinoma.BMC endocrine disorders · 2026Article
- Preoperative diagnosis of lateral cervical lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma: a multimodal ultrasound model integrating super-resolution ultrasound.Cancer imaging : the official publication of the International Cancer Imaging Society · 2026Article
- How Many Lymph Nodes are Enough in Thyroidectomy? A Cohort Study Based on Real-World Data.Annals of surgical oncology · 2025Article
- Role of ultrasound‑guided fine‑needle aspiration cytology combined with thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin antibodies in evaluating cervical lymph node metastasis in thyroid cancer.Oncology letters · 2024Article
- The efficacy and assessment value of the level of thyroglobulin wash-out after fine-needle aspiration cytodiagnosis in the evaluation of lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma.World journal of surgical oncology · 2024Article
- The diagnostic value of GICA used for intraoperative lymph node FNA-Tg measurement to evaluate thyroid cancer metastases.European thyroid journal · 2024Article
- Interpretable machine learning models for predicting skip metastasis in cN0 papillary thyroid cancer based on clinicopathological and elastography radiomics features.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- Ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration thyroglobulin in the diagnosis of lymph node metastasis of differentiated papillary thyroid carcinoma and its influencing factors.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- The diagnosis and management of small and indeterminate lymph nodes in papillary thyroid cancer: preoperatively and intraoperatively.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Review
- The influence of thyroid status, serum Tg, TSH, and TgAb on FNA-Tg in cervical metastatic lymph nodes of papillary thyroid carcinoma.Laryngoscope investigative otolaryngology · 2022Article
- A Risk Stratification Model for Metastatic Lymph Nodes of Papillary Thyroid Cancer: A Retrospective Study Based on Sonographic Features.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Article
- The Role of Thyroglobulin in Preoperative and Postoperative Evaluation of Patients With Differentiated Thyroid Cancer.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesUltrasound (US)-guided fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and thyroglobulin measurement (FNA-Tg) are two common methods for confirming lymph node metastases (LNM) in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). This study aimed at comparing the diagnostic performance of FNAC, FNA-Tg alone, and in combination by means of a meta-analysis.
methodsEligible articles were selected according to predefined criteria, and their quality was evaluated as per the QUADAS-2 checklist. We calculated pooled sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), positive/negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and plotted the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve using the Meta-DiSc1.4 software.
resultsTwenty-one studies pooling 1662 malignant and 1279 benign LNs from 2712 patients with DTC were included. The results showed that FNAC was more specific (pooled Sp, 0.98) while FNA-Tg was more sensitive (pooled Se, 0.94). FNAC and FNAC+FNA-Tg performed better postoperatively than FNA-Tg, while FNA-Tg performed better preoperatively. The combination of FNAC and FNA-Tg could achieve a better diagnostic performance than each alone (DOR 446.00, area under the curve [AUC] 0.9862), no matter preoperatively (DOR 378.14, AUC 0.9879) or postoperatively (DOR 788.72, AUC 0.9930). Besides, the combination of FNAC and FNA-Tg/serum-Tg ratio obtained a higher Sp (0.98) than the combination of FNAC and FNA-Tg.
conclusionThe addition of FNA-Tg, especially the FNA-Tg/serum-Tg ratio, to FNAC could increase the diagnostic performance of LNM in both preoperative and postoperative patients with DTC. Since one test or test combinations could perform differently according to the clinical situation, the best-fitting test should be chosen accordingly. KEY POINTS: • FNAC is more specific than FNA-Tg while FNA-Tg is more sensitive than FNAC. • The combination of FNAC and FNA-Tg could achieve a better diagnostic performance than either alone, no matter preoperatively or postoperatively. • The combination of FNAC and FNA-Tg/serum-Tg ratio could reach a higher Sp than the combination of FNAC and FNA-Tg.
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