Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The most common cause of hyperthytoidism is considered to be Graves disease (also known as Basedow disease), an autoimuune disorder. The most recent technique developed for measuring the tissue elasticity is considered to be sonographic elastography.

Aim: This study was conducted in order to determinate if any significant changes could be encountered in the elastographic patterns of the different evolutive stages of Graves’ disease.

Material: We included in the study a total number of 24 randomized patients diagnosed with Graves disease, distributed in 3 categories: Onset (O), Stable (S) and Healed (H). In the Onset category were included 6 patients (with mean age 41.5 ± 10.1), 10 patients (with mean age 43.5 ± 12.1) were included in Stable category and 8 patients (with mean age 49.5 ± 9.7) were in healed phase.

Method: All subjects were evaluated by all means: clinical, hormonal, immunological and convetional US. Strain elastography was performed with a HITACHI Preirus machine, with a 5–15 multifrequency linear probe. All the included patients underwent real-time strain elastography. The strain ratio was computed evaluating the strain of each lobe compared with sternocleidomastoid muscle on the same side.

Results: The strain ratios (SRs) (mean ± standard deviation) of patients included in the cathegories O, S and H were 1.9 ± 0.83; 1.3 ± 0.46 respectively 0.7 ± 0.17. Ranked in ascending order, SR values were: healed < stable < onset. Statistically significant (P < 0.05) differences regarding thyroid stiffness were found between the groups.

Conclusion: The existence of various degrees of elasticity in the thyroid parenchyma depending of the evolutive phase was identified using real-time strain elastography.

Keywords: graves disease, elastography, thyroid, strain ratio.