Comb-Push Ultrasound Shear Elastography of thyroid: Preliminary in vivo human study

Shear wave elastography (SWE) techniques have been introduced and have shown promising potency in providing diagnostic information about thyroid nodules. Comb-push Ultrasound Shear Elastography (CUSE) has been recently introduced as a technique that is capable of measuring mechanical properties of soft tissues with a novel acoustic radiation force excitation fashion, leading to notable advantages of fast acquisition of shear wave speed data within a large field of view. In this study, we demonstrated the preliminary utility of CUSE in imaging thyroid tissue and thyroid nodules in a group of 5 healthy volunteers and 10 patients. The shear wave speed values were converted into Young's modulus (E) and suggested a clear difference between benign (91.2±34.8 kPa) and malignant (173.0±17.1 kPa) thyroid nodules, thus indicating the potential of using CUSE in differentiating between benign and malignant nodules in thyroid.