Value of ultrasound and fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosis of thyroid nodules:a Meta-analysis

Objective To evaluate the diagnostic value of the FNAC and ultrasound for thyroid nodule.Methods PubMed,EMbase,CNKI,CBM,VIP were searched to include articles according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria of diagnostic research.QUADAS was used to evaluate the quality of literature included,and Meta-Disc 1.4 software was used to do the Meta analysis,draw the summary receiver operating characteristic(SROC curve),and calculate the area under the curve.Results A total of 10 literatures involving 4694 cases with ultrasound diagnosis and 3595 cases with FNAN diagnosis were included.The sensitivity of ultrasound and FNAC was 0.88(95% CI 0.86-0.90) and 0.80(95% CI 0.76-0.83) respectively;the specificity was 0.94(95% CI 0.93-0.95) and 0.87(95% CI 0.85-0.88) respectively;and the area under SROC curve was 0.9504 and 0.8859 respectively.Conclusion The accuracy of FNAC is better than ultrasound in diagnosis of thyroid nodule,and both of them have great value in the diagnosis of thyroid nodule,which can make patients with thyroid disease avoid unnecessary surgical treatment,have significant diagnostic value.