Significance of magnetic resonance zoomed imaging with parallel transmission intravoxel incoherent motion imaging, ultrasonography and dual-energy computed tomography imaging in the differential diagnosis of benign thyroid nodule and papillary thyroid carcinoma

Background: to assess the use of computed tomography (ct), ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging (mri) in distinguishing papillary thyroid cancer (ptc) from benign thyroid nodules. materials and methods: a total of 45 cases with benign thyroid nodules and 75 cases with papillary thyroid cancer were included from our hospital from march 2020 to december 2021. all patients were examined by mri, ultrasonography and dual-energy ct. the outcomes of the two groups' mri, ct and ultrasonography scans were compared. results: the benign nodule group had significantly higher pure diffusion coefficient (d) (1.38±0.32 vs 0.95±0.12), perfusion fraction (f) values (17.13±4.35 vs 12.83±2.93) and iodine concentration (ic) plain scan scores (0.96±0.44 vs 0.56±0.37), whereas it had lower ic artery scores (2.65±1.11 vs 3.92±1.22) than those of the ptc group (p<0.001 for all). the emax value of the ptc group was substantially greater than that of the benign nodule group (62.53±37.93 vs 25.37±8.38, p<0.001), and the percentage of nodules with aspect ratio ≥ 1 was higher in the ptc group than in the benign nodule group (48.0% vs 22.2%, p=0.005). the area under the curve (auc) for mri in the diagnosis of ptc patients was 0.885, which was substantially higher than those for ultrasonography (auc=0.705) and ct exams (auc=0.753) (p<0.001). conclusion: mri, ultrasonography and ct examinations are essential for discriminating between benign thyroid nodules and ptc. mri has better diagnostic accuracy than the other two tests.