ObjectiveTo systematically review the clinical value of ultrasonographic elastography (UE) for the differential diagnosis of benign/malignant thyroid nodules. MethodsWe comprehensively searched the databases including The Cochrane Library (Issue2, 2013), PubMed, EMbase, CNKI, WanFang Data, Medalink, VIP and CBM from inception to the December of 2013, for including clinical research reports of determining thyroid nodules using ultrasonographic elastography. Literature screening according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, data extraction and methodological quality assessment were completed by two reviewers independently. Then Meta-DiSc software (version 1.4) was used for pooling analysis. ResultsA total of 35 studies including 4 127 patients were included. The results of metaanalysis showed that, specificity, sensitivity, positive likelihood radio, negative likelihood radio and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were 0.89 (0.88 to 0.90), 0.88 (0.86 to 0.90), 6.37 (5.44 to7.47), 0.13 (0.11 to 0.16) and 58.72 (43.12 to 79.98), respectively; and the area under SROC curve (AUC) was 0.936 9. ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that ultrasonographic elastography has fairly high sensitivity (88%) and specificity (89%) in differential diagnosis of benign/malignant thyroid nodules. The positive rate in the malignant thyroid group is 58.72 times higher that in benign thyroid cancer with better efficacy in differential diagnosis, so ultrasonographic elastography is of effective and feasible diagnostic value for thyroid benign/malignant nodules.
ObjectiveTo systematically review the diagnostic value of the ultrasonographic elastography in the differential diagnosis of axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer.MethodsWe electronically searched the databases including The Cochrane Library, PubMed, CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP, MedaLink and CBM for studies about diagnostic value of the ultrasonographic elastography in the differential diagnosis of axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer from inception to October 2016. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies. Then meta-analysis was performed using MetaDisc 1.4 software.ResultsA total of 9 studies involving 735 lymph nodes were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, the pooled sensitivity, pooled specificity, pooled positive likelihood ratio, pooled negative likelihood ratio and DOR were 0.82 (95%CI 0.78 to 0.86), 0.76 (95%CI 0.72 to 0.81), 3.32 (95%CI 2.57 to 4.27), 0.25 (95%CI 0.20 to 0.31), and 14.77 (95%CI 10.20 to 21.38), respectively. The AUC of the SROC curve was 0.8741.ConclusionUltrasonographic elastography has high sensitivity and specificity in the differential diagnosis of axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer, which indicates that it can be used to diagnosis axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer.