The potential value of ultrasound in predicting local refractory/relapse events in primary thyroid lymphoma patients

Background Primary thyroid lymphoma (PTL) is a rare malignant disorder, and ultrasound plays an important role in PTL diagnosis and follow-up surveillance.

Prediction of refractory/relapse events in PTL patients is an essential issue, yet no ultrasonic PTL features have been discovered to be related to refractory/local relapse events.

Methods From January 2008 to September 2022, newly diagnosed PTL patients in our center who underwent standard first-line treatment and received an ultrasound examination before treatment were enrolled.

Data regarding patients’ clinical and sonographic features, as well as their therapeutic responses were collected.

Subjects with an ideal prognosis were compared to those with refractory/relapse events.

Results In total, 37 PTL patients were analyzed, including 26 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, 2 with follicular lymphoma and 9 with mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma.

During the median follow-up of 25 months, 30 patients obtained a complete response, 4 were refractory patients, and 3 experienced local relapse.

No significant difference was detected in the baseline clinical characteristics between patients with an ideal prognosis and those with refractory/local relapse events.

In terms of sonographic features, however, an event-free survival (EFS) curve comparison revealed that patients with bilobar enlargement (defined as an anterior-posterior diameter > 2.5 cm on both sides of thyroid lobes) had a poorer EFS than those without ( P  < 0.0001), and patients with diffuse type had a poorer EFS than those with mixed/nodular types ( P  = 0.043).

No significant difference was observed in EFS between patients with or without signs of suspicious cervical lymph node metastasis, rich blood signal distribution or symptoms of trachea compression.

Conclusions PTL patients with an anterior-posterior diameter > 2.5 cm for both thyroid lobes or PTL patients of the diffuse ultrasound type could be prone to refractory/local relapse events.