Role of sonoelastography in characterization of solid breast lesions.

Abstract

This study aimed at the study of the role of ultrasound elastography in characterization of solid breast lesions to differentiate benign from malignant breast lesions. The study conducted on 40 patients with palpable breast lesions classified to BIRADS 3 and 4a according to conventional ultrasound and mammographic criteria. Their ages ranged from 18 to 75 years with a mean age of 47 years. All patients were subjected to full history taking, clinical examination, conventional gray scale ultrasound, and mammography and ultrasound elastography. All patients were under went histopathological assessment to reach final diagnosis. Ultrasound elastography, a noninvasive method for revealing the physical properties of a tissue, has been developed as an alternative to breast biopsy. The elastography information is immediately available and superimposed in color on the B-mode image. Sonoelastography is, therefore, not more time consuming than conventional breast US In clinical practice, elastography is not used independently. According to our study, the benign lesions had elasticity scores 2-3 and malignant lesions had elasticity scores 4, the sensitivity and specificity of ultrasound elastography were So sensitivity of the elastography test is 77.78%, specificity 88.89% with PPV 70.0 %, NPV 92.31% and accuracy 86.11%. (Elastography is not used independently but as an additional role for conventional ultrasound examination assessed by the BIRADs scoring system and not as a separate examination. Elastography is performed in the same session of ultrasound taking about five minutes more than the conventional ultrasound examination.