Ultrasound elastography – Review

Goitre has ceased to be a major problem in many developed countries but still it continuous to be a serious health problem in many third world countries. Thyroid cancers have a harder consistency than benign thyroid nodules; therefore, real-time elastography (RTE) has been recently proposed as a new diagnostic tool able to differentiate malignant from benign lesions by providing an estimation of tissue stiffness. Elastography is a technique that uses ultrasound to analyze the stiffness of a nodule by measuring the amount of distortion that occurs when the nodule is subjected to external pressure. Utilization of ultrasound elastography could reduce the rate of thyroid biopsies because of its high elasticity being highly associated with benign cytology.