A real-world comparison of the diagnostic performances of six different TI-RADS guidelines, including ACR-/Kwak-/K-/EU-/ATA-/C-TIRADS.

Objective: To compare the diagnostic performance of six different currently available guidelines including the American College of Radiology Thyroid Imaging and Reporting Data System (ACR-TIRADS), Kwak-TIRADS, Korean TIRADS (K-TIRADS), European TIRADS (EU-TIRADS), American Thyroid Association (ATA) and Chinese TIRADS (C-TIRADS), in differentiating malignant from benign thyroid nodules (TN).

Methods: In this single-center study, between January-2007 and September-2023, ultrasound (US) images of TNs that were pathologically proven either by surgery or by fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB), were retrospectively evaluated and categorized according to six different currently available guidelines. Area under curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV, respectively) and miss rates for malignancy (MRM) were calculated for each guideline.

Results: A total of 829 TNs (n = 234 malignant and n = 595 benign) were included. AUC, sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy for ACR-TIRADS were 0.786, 99.8 %, 27.1 %, 31.92 %, 99.73 % and 54.6 %, respectively; for Kwak-TIRADS 0.839, 97.8 %, 42.1 %, 36.29 %, 98.11 % and 63.1 %, respectively; for K-TIRADS 0.797, 97.6 %, 41.6 %, 36.01 %, 84.85 % and 62.8, respectively, for EU-TIRADS 0.766, 97.8 %, 35.6 %, 33.89 %, 97.92 % and 59.1 %, respectively, for ATA 0.788, 97.5 %, 49.8 %, 32.86 %, 88.16 % and 64.2 %, respectively and for C-TIRADS 0.842, 0 %, 92.8 %, 54.3 %, 39.53 %, 90.42 %, and 68.8 % respectively. MRM regarding ACR-/Kwak-/K-/EU-/ATA-/C-TIRADS were 2.2 %, 0.5 %, 2.9 %, 2.5 %, 3.3 % and 0.1 %, respectively.

Conclusions: Six different currently available TIRADS guidelines can provide effective differentiation of malignant TNs from benign ones with similar diagnostic performances. However; C-TIRADS offered the highest AUC and the lowest MRM than the other guidelines, in this series.