Quantitative measurement of thyroid blood flow for differentiation of painless thyroiditis from Graves’ disease

Abstract

TBF was quantitatively measured by power Doppler ultrasonography and was more effective than TBII for differentiation between destruction-induced thyrotoxicosis (painless or subacute thyroiditis) and Graves' thyrotoxicosis. TBF values of less than 4% in untreated thyrotoxic patients are laboratory signals of destruction-induced thyrotoxicosis and if these are determined, the radioactive iodine uptake test can be omitted for differential diagnosis of these two types of thyrotoxicosis.