Department of Ultrasound, Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China.
Chin Med J (Engl). 2011 Aug;124(15):2384-6.
Detecting small breast tumors is difficult for conventional ultrasound. The goal of this study was to assess the value of ultrasound elastography in characterizing small breast tumors and to compare its sensitivity, specificity and accuracy with conventional ultrasound.
A total of 308 breast tumors less than 2 cm in size from 283 in-hospital patients examined with both conventional ultrasound and ultrasound elastography were retrospectively analyzed. The results were compared to surgical pathology.
There were 104 malignant and 204 benign lesions. The sensitivities of sonography and sonoelastography were similar (P < 0.05), and the sensitivity of the two modalities combined improved remarkably to 97.1%. The mean elastic score of malignant and benign tumors less than 2 cm were 3.76 ± 1.01 and 1.73 ± 0.99, respectively (P < 0.05), and the mean elastic score of the false-negative lesions on conventional ultrasound was 3.61 ± 1.14.
Ultrasound elastography in combination with conventional ultrasound can improve the sensitivity for detecting small breast tumors. It is also valuable in detecting small malignant tumors which are difficult to diagnose with conventional ultrasound. Ultrasound elastography can be a useful adjunct to conventional ultrasound in diagnosing small breast tumors.
传统超声检查难以检测到小的乳腺肿瘤。本研究旨在评估超声弹性成像在小乳腺肿瘤特征描述中的价值，并与传统超声比较其敏感性、特异性和准确性。
回顾性分析了 283 例住院患者共 308 个小于 2cm 的乳腺肿瘤的常规超声和超声弹性成像检查结果，与手术病理结果进行比较。
其中恶性肿瘤 104 个，良性肿瘤 204 个。超声和超声弹性成像的敏感性相似（P<0.05），两者联合的敏感性显著提高至 97.1%。小于 2cm 的恶性和良性肿瘤的平均弹性评分分别为 3.76±1.01 和 1.73±0.99（P<0.05），常规超声假阴性病变的平均弹性评分为 3.61±1.14。
超声弹性成像联合常规超声可提高小乳腺肿瘤的检出敏感性，对于常规超声难以诊断的小的恶性肿瘤也具有一定价值。超声弹性成像可以作为常规超声诊断小乳腺肿瘤的有用辅助手段。
