Lympnode Neck Ultrasound result interpretation

[Cerine99]

Hey,
I received an ultrasound for my neck to check my thyroid. I requested copies of my results the next day but my follow up isn't for month. My thyroid read normal but for lymph node reading was not.  
It said: Bilateral symmetric 1 cm short axis level 2 lymph nodes, potentially reactive. Clinical follow up.Impression: Symmetric bilateral cervical lymph nodes, which can be followed clinically

Any insight would be helpful thank you

[CHIN_C]

Reactive is a fancy medical term that favors benign etiology, such as underlying infection and/or inflammation, in contrast to pathologic which is a fancy medical term for malignant etiology, such as metastasis.

As the other user pointed out, size criteria is one way of determining whether a lymph node is suspicious or not. I also want to point out that the appearance of the node is also important. For example, the presence of a fatty hilum favors benign etiology while the absence of a fatty hilum is indeterminate/suspicious.

[anires91]

Hi, I do ultrasound. Level II just refers to the area on the neck where the lymph nodes are and potentially reactive just means that they are possibly enlarged due to an infection. Your lymph nodes can swell up in your neck when you're body is fighting off an infection. At my hospital we don't consider 1cm as an enlarged lymph node, but some doctors consider anything over 0.5cm as enlarged. It also depends how the node looked visually as well. If it had abnormal borders, that could be a reason they want a follow up. This is nothing usually to worry about. Hope this helped.