ArticleQuantitative imaging in medicine and surgery2025
Diagnostic performance of ultrasound elastography alone and in combination with conventional ultrasonography for Bethesda III-IV thyroid nodules: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Article in Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- The Role of Thyroid Elastography in Children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus or Celiac Disease Who Have Negative Thyroid Autoantibodies.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Multimodal risk assessment of malignancy in thyroidology for nodules with indeterminate cytology.Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992) · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The current diagnostic paradigm for thyroid nodule characterization predominantly depends on fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytology. Nevertheless, in cases of indeterminate cytology classified as Bethesda III and IV, the clinical community continues to face significant challenges in establishing reliable non-invasive diagnostic modalities for accurate pathological differentiation. This meta-analysis evaluates the diagnostic value of ultrasound elastography in Bethesda III-IV thyroid nodules, and compares the diagnostic efficacy when combined with conventional ultrasound. Methods: We searched English medical databases, including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Ovid, for relevant literature. These studies were reviewed by 2 members who also extracted pertinent data. We calculated pooled values via random effects meta-analysis to determine diagnostic performance. Results: A total of 2,356 nodules were included in 27 studies. The overall sensitivity of ultrasound elastography was 0.81, the overall specificity was 0.83, the diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was 16.40, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.87. A total of 8 articles incorporated the combined application of ultrasound elastography and conventional ultrasonography. The overall sensitivity was 0.87, the overall specificity was 0.73, the DOR was 21.33, and the AUC was 0.90. Conclusions: Ultrasound elastography has good diagnostic value for Bethesda III-IV thyroid nodules, and the semiquantitative method outperforms the qualitative and quantitative methods. Ultrasound elastography in combination with conventional ultrasonography has better sensitivity and a lower specificity, and there is no significant difference between the 2 methods overall (P>0.05).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.