What Happens after an Incidental Thyroid Nodule? Patterns of Thyroid Ultrasound Use and Downstream Evaluation
Authors' conclusion
One in five patients with ITNs underwent TUS, representing a critical gateway to downstream diagnostic procedures and thyroid cancer detection.
Study context
- Population
- Adults without prior thyroid disease with imaging incidentally capturing the thyroid, Mayo Clinic sites (2017–2023); ITN patients 64.6% female, 89.7% White, mean age 61.7 years (SD 15.2)Incidental thyroid nodules (ITNs) among 115,683 imaged
- Participants
- 8,426 adults
- Exposure
- Thyroid ultrasound (TUS) vs no TUS after ITN detection
- TUSn = 1,677
- Outcome
- Rate of TUS after ITN detection
- Follow-up
- Within 180 days
Methodological detailsnatural language processing pipeline, multivariable logistic regression with penalized variable selection
- Natural language processing pipeline
- Multivariable logistic regression with penalized variable selection
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
TUS within 180 days of ITN detection
TUS
19.9%
1677
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
| Outcome | OR (CI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Factors associated with TUS use (multivariable)Higher BMI (per 10-unit increase) | 1.20 (1.08–1.33) | |
| Factors associated with TUS use (multivariable)Older age (per 10-year increase) | 0.89 (0.84–0.93) | |
| 0.512Odds ratio (log scale) |
Factors associated with TUS use (multivariable)
| OR (CI) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nodule size ≥1.5 cm | 1.79 (1.52–2.10) | |
| Radiologist recommendation | 2.51 (2.12–2.98) | |
| 0.20.5125Odds ratio (log scale) |
| Outcome | TUS |
|---|---|
| Thyroid cancer diagnosis | 6.1% |
ITN prevalence among thyroid-capturing imaging
- Patients with an ITN
- 8426 (7.3%)
- Detected on CT
- 80.8%
- From chest imaging
- 52.3%
Downstream procedures
- Higher rates of thyroid biopsy, partial and total thyroidectomy with TUS vs without
Thyroid cancer diagnosis
- All detected thyroid cancers occurred in the TUS group
Original publication
What Happens after an Incidental Thyroid Nodule? Patterns of Thyroid Ultrasound Use and Downstream Evaluation. Thyroid. Published 30 September 2026. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →