Department of Ultrasound, Xinqiao Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China.
Department of Ultrasound, First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, Second People's Hospital of Shenzhen, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
PLoS One. 2019 Jul 18;14(7):e0219943. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219943. eCollection 2019.
The purpose of our study is to assess the diagnostic performance of quantitative evaluation of tissue stiffness around lesion by Sound Touch Elastography (STE) in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions. A total number of 160 breast lesions from 160 female patients were examined by STE. Resona 7 was equipped with "shell" function to measure elastic modulus values of tissue in the region of surrounding lesion quantitatively. The contours of the lesion were required to be delineated. The elastic modulus values of tissue in the region of 1mm, 2mm, and 3mm outside the boundary were acquired. The elastic modulus values included maximum elastic modulus (Emax), mean elastic modulus (Emean), minimum elastic modulus (Emin), and elastic modulus standard deviation (Esd). All lesions were confirmed by histopathology. We compared the differences of the above elastic modulus values between benign and malignant groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn with the histological diagnostic results as the gold standard. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated to evaluate the diagnostic performance of STE. Operator consistency was also analyzed. Among the 160 lesions, 100 (62.5%) were benign and 60 (37.5%) were malignant. In the region of 1mm, 2mm, and 3mm surrounding the lesion, Emax, Emean, and Esd of malignant group were significantly higher than those of the benign group (all P<0.05). When the "shell" was 3mm, Emax had the highest AUROC value (AUROC = 0.998). Regarding the measurement of elastic modulus values, all the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) values of the inter-operator consistency were greater than 0.75 for Emax, Emean, and Esd. Therefore, quantitative evaluation of tissue stiffness around lesion by STE has the potential to distinguish between benign and malignant breast lesions.
本研究旨在评估声触诊组织弹性成像（STE）定量评估病变周围组织硬度在鉴别良恶性乳腺病变中的诊断性能。对 160 例女性患者的 160 个乳腺病变进行了 STE 检查。Resona 7 配备了“壳”功能，可定量测量病变周围区域组织的弹性模量值。需要描绘病变的轮廓。获取边界外 1mm、2mm 和 3mm 区域的组织弹性模量值。弹性模量值包括最大弹性模量（Emax）、平均弹性模量（Emean）、最小弹性模量（Emin）和弹性模量标准差（Esd）。所有病变均经组织病理学证实。我们比较了良性和恶性组之间上述弹性模量值的差异。以组织学诊断结果为金标准绘制受试者工作特征（ROC）曲线。计算敏感性和特异性以评估 STE 的诊断性能。还分析了操作者一致性。在 160 个病变中，良性病变 100 个（62.5%），恶性病变 60 个（37.5%）。在病变周围 1mm、2mm 和 3mm 区域，恶性组的 Emax、Emean 和 Esd 明显高于良性组（均 P<0.05）。当“壳”为 3mm 时，Emax 的 AUROC 值最高（AUROC=0.998）。关于弹性模量值的测量，Emax、Emean 和 Esd 的组内相关系数（ICC）值均大于 0.75，表明操作者间的一致性良好。因此，STE 定量评估病变周围组织硬度具有鉴别良恶性乳腺病变的潜力。
