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. 2021 Dec;10(12):3351-3361.
doi: 10.21037/gs-21-766.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the diagnostic value of radionuclide imaging for thyroid nodules

Xin Song #  1   2 , Zhongmei Luo #  2   3 , Haiyan Sun  2   3 , Lingna Hao  1   2
Affiliations

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the diagnostic value of radionuclide imaging for thyroid nodules

Xin Song et al. Gland Surg. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Background: There are many studies on diagnostic imaging of thyroid nodules, among which radionuclide scanning imaging has been proven to be very effective in identifying malignant lesions of thyroid nodules and is now widely used in the clinical detection of thyroid nodules.

Methods: Studies on radionuclide imaging in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules were searched in multiple Chinese and English databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and The Cochrane Library as of July 1, 2021. The search terms included "clinical experiment", "thyroid nodule", "radionuclide imaging", "thyroid mass", "thyroid masses", "postoperative pathology", and "histopathology". The basic information and evaluation indicators in the literature were screened and extracted. Subsequently, meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 and Stata 13 software provided by the Cochrane system. In addition, forest plots and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves were drawn.

Results: Seven randomized controlled trails (RCTs) were included in this study. The radionuclide imaging of thyroid nodule showed the area under SROC curve of 0.38. The combined diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 0.66 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.46, 0.89] and 0.36 (95% CI: 0.21, 0.59), respectively. The combined positive likelihood ratio (LR) and negative LR were 0.66 (95% CI: 0.53, 0.87) and 0.67 (95% CI: 0.43, 0.95), respectively. In addition, the combined diagnostic odds ratio (OR) was 4.45 (95% CI: 0.25, 10.57).

Discussion: In this study, meta-analysis was used to confirm the application value of radionuclide imaging in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules. In the future, the value of radionuclide imaging in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules should be compared with other imaging detection methods.

Keywords: Radionuclide imaging; diagnosis; meta-analysis; thyroid nodules.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://dx.doi.org/10.21037/gs-21-766). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Literature retrieval flowchart.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Risk of bias evaluation results of the included literature.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Multiple risk bias evaluation results corresponding to the multiple included studies. “+” signifies low risk of bias; “−” denotes high risk of bias; “?” indicates unclear risk of bias.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The forest map of thyroid nodules diagnosed by radionuclide imaging. TP, true positive; FP, false positive; FN, false negative; TN, true negative; CI, confidence interval.
Figure 5
Figure 5
SROC curve of radionuclide imaging in the diagnosis of thyroid nodules. SROC, summary receiver operating characteristic.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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