Diagnostic ultrasound of thyroid cancer lymphogenic metastases

This study was undertaken to evaluate the potentials of sonography in diagnosis of metastatic involvement of lymphatic system for 62 patients with thyroid cancer. All patients underwent surgery with subsequent morphological confirmation of the diagnosis. Deep jugular lymph nodes involved with tumor were the most common (in 57 % of cases). The most diagnostic difficulties occurred during visualization of pre-and paratracheal lymph nodes. Ultrasonic symptoms of lymph node metastatic involvement and semiotics with respect to histological type of thyroid cancer were described. Ultrasound examination is of high informative value in diagnosis of thyroid cancer lymphogenous metastases. Sensitivity, specificity and precision of the method were 90 %, 85 % and 97 %, respectively.