Ultrasonographic Findings of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

Objective: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) sometimes occurs with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT). It is often difficult to differentiate between benign and malignant nodules in HT because HT varies greatly on ultrasonography. We aimed to characterize the ultrasonographic features of PTC with HT. Patients and Methods: In this retrospective study, 2167 patient records (1897 women and 270 men) were examined for ultrasonographic features and thyroid autoantibodies between 1998 and 2002 at our university. Patients with Graves' disease, positive TSH receptor autoantibody (TRAb) or thyroid-stimulating antibody (TSAb) were excluded. PTC was diagnosed by pathological examination. Results: Of the 1644 patients who were autoantibody negative (MCHA, TGHA, TgAb, TPOAb), 54 (3.3%) had PTC, while 29 (5.5%) of the 523 patients who were autoantibody positive had PTC. On ultrasonography, the frequency of dense calcification in patients with HT was significantly higher (P=0.0064) and frequency of psammoma bodies was less than PTC patients without HT (P