AUTHOR=Liu Jia , Chang Xiaona , Wang Qiu , Ding Xiaoyu , Jiang Tao , Wang Guang 

TITLE=Magnetic resonance T1-mapping quantitatively assesses the severity of thyroid destruction in patients with autoimmune thyroiditis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Endocrinology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.1028588

DOI=10.3389/fendo.2022.1028588

ISSN=1664-2392

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Objective</title><p>Autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT) is a common organ-specific autoimmune disease. Longitudinal relaxation time mapping (T1-mapping) analyzed by magnetic resonance imaging is a new method for evaluating inflammation or fibrosis. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between thyroid T1-mapping value and degree of intrathyroidal inflammation and destruction in euthyroid AIT patients.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>This case-control study recruited 28 drug-naïve AIT patients and 18 healthy controls. Thyroid specimens were collected for assessing the mRNA expression of inflammatory factors and histopathologic examination. T1-mapping values were measured using a modified look-locker inversion-recovery sequence in all participants.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>The positive rate of pathological diagnosed AIT was only 83.3% in the AIT group diagnosed by positive TPOAb and/or TgAb and typical ultrasonic manifestations, while 7.1% of the control group was diagnosed as AIT by pathological manifestations. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed a very high diagnostic value of thyroid T1-mapping values for pathological diagnosed AIT (area under the curve was 0.950, 95%<italic>CI</italic>: 0.843 – 0.993, <italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.001). In the patients with pathological diagnosed AIT, thyroid T1-mapping values were significantly associated with the mRNA expression of <italic>INF-γ</italic> (<italic>r</italic> = 0.343, <italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.05), <italic>TNF-α</italic> (<italic>r</italic> = 0.352, <italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.01), and <italic>IL-1β</italic> (<italic>r</italic> = 0.673, <italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.01) in thyroid tissues. Moreover, histopathologic examination showed that thyroid T1-mapping values can properly reflect the degree of thyroid destruction in AIT patients.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusions</title><p>Thyroid T1-mapping values had a very high diagnostic value for AIT. In euthyroid AIT patients, thyroid T1-mapping values better reflect degree of intrathyroidal inflammation and destruction.</p></sec>