[Echo-color Doppler in thyroid disease].

One-hundred and sixty-six patients affected with thyroid diseases were examined, together with 41 healthy volunteers, by means of color-Doppler US. Four main reference patterns were identified: no appreciable glandular flow (I); presence of signal in perinodular location (II); peri- and intranodular flow (III); increased vascularization (IV). In 72 cases, parenchymal and nodular goiters, with no signs of thyroid hyperfunction, were characterized as belonging to pattern III, while pattern II was observed in 57 nodular lesions; only in 7 patients was pattern III detected. Hyperfunctioning autonomous nodules exhibited pattern III in 10/11 cases and the same pattern was followed by the six carcinomas. Pattern IV resulted peculiar to Basedow disease and to glandular hyperplasia related to high values of circulating thyroid hormone (6 cases). When color-Doppler specificity in typifying the major thyreopathies can be confirmed, the possibility is actually in sight of reducing, in the near future, the number of thyroid scintigraphies and of US-guided needle biopsies.