Comparison of sonographically guided percutaneous sodium tetradecyl sulfate injection with ethanol injection in the treatment of benign nonfunctioning thyroid nodules.

Purpose: To compare the efficacy of percutaneous sodium tetradecyl sulfate (STS) injection with ethanol injection in the treatment of benign nonfunctioning thyroid nodules.

Materials And Methods: This prospective study included 47 patients with 50 benign thyroid nodules. The lesions were randomly assigned into two groups: 20 in the ethanol arm and 30 in the STS arm. The mean lesion volume was 25.6 mL ± 28.5 (range, 4-122.1 mL) in the ethanol arm and 25.4 mL ± 27 (range, 0.72-129 mL) in the STS arm. One sitting of sclerosant injection was done in 20 lesions, and two injections, three injections, four injections, five injections, six injections, seven injections, and eight sittings of injections were done in 9 lesions, 4 lesions, 8 lesions, 4 lesions, 2 lesions, 2 lesions, and 1 lesion. The mean volumes of the instilled ethanol and STS were 5.3 mL and 7.8 mL, respectively, per sitting. Follow-up sonography was performed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the procedure.

Results: The final 12-month follow-up lesion volumes were 4.1 mL ± 3.7 (range, 0.3-15.2 mL) in the ethanol group and 4.4 mL ± 5.8 (range, 0.01-29.6 mL) in the STS group (P = .85). The mean volume reduction was 84% and 82.8% in the two groups. No significant adverse effects were seen in either of the two groups.

Conclusions: Sonographically guided percutaneous ethanol and STS injections are not significantly different from each other in terms of the volume reduction achieved in benign nonfunctioning thyroid nodules.