OBJECTIVETo investigate the correlation between Young's modulus of the thyroid tissue measured by in shear wave elastography (SWE) and the clinical manifestations of Hashimoto's thyroiditis in different stages.

METHODSA total of 104 patients with the clinical diagnosis of Hashimoto's thyroiditis were enrolled in this study, including 26 with hyperthyroidism, 29 with normal thyroid function, 27 with subclinical hypothyroidism, 22 with clinical hypothyroidism, with 50 healthy volunteers serving as the healthy control group. All the subjects underwent SWE to obtain the Young's modulus value of the thyroid tissue. Univariate analysis of variance was used to compare the Young's modulus among the groups, and Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between the Young's modulus of the thyroid tissue and serum levels of thyroid microsomal antibody (TMAb) and thyroid globulin antibody (TGAb).

RESULTSIn the 4 groups of patients, the Young's modulus increased significantly in the order of hyperthyroidism group, normal thyroid function group, subclinical hypothyroidism group and clinical hypothyroidism group (F=60.983, P<0.01). The Young's modulus was significantly lower in hyperthyroidism group than in the other 3 groups (P<0.05), and was significantly lower in normal thyroid function group than in subclinical hypothyroidism group and clinical hypothyroidism group (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe Young's modulus of the thyroid tissue measured by shear wave elastography is related with the clinical manifestations of Hashimoto's thyroiditis in different stages, but the relevance needs to be further confirmed by multi-center, randomized, controlled studies involving a larger sample size.