[Diagnostic efficacy of (18)F-FDG PET-CT for focal hypermetabolic thyroid nodules].

Objective To explore the diagnostic efficacy of by 18F-FDG PET-CT for hypermetabolic thyroid nodules. Methods To retrospectively analyze the clinical data of 3 192 patients underwent 18F-FDG PET-CT in our hospital from May 2012 to October 2014. Among them, 98 patients were diagnosed with focal hypermetabolic thyroid nodules. 61 of the 98 patients were diagnosed with malignant or benign thyroid nodules using histopathological or clinical follow-up (22 malignant nodules, 39 benign nodules). The average age of these 61 patients was 61.6±12.5 years. Results The lgSUVmax of malignant group (0.69±0.31) was significantly higher than that in benign group (0.43±0.27) (P=0.001). There was no significant difference in age, gender, nodule size, minimum diameter of nodule, lgCT, calcification, the boundary definition, density uniformity, and history of malignancy between the two groups (P>0.05). Binary Logistic regression indicated the AUC of Logistic regressive model(AUC) was 0.866±0.049 (95% CI: 0.769-0.963), and the malignant AUCs of ROC curve was 0.747±0.068 (95%CI: 0.614-0.880) which was only determined by lgSUVmax. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.01). Conclusion 18F-FDG PET-CT imaging can not only detect hypermetabolic thyroid nodules, but also have a certain clinical value for the identification of benign and malignant nodules. Key words: Thyroid neoplasms; Deoxyglucose; Tomography, emission-computed; Tomography, X-ray computed; Hypermetabolic thyroid nodules