[Ultrasonic mammography: its importance in integrated diagnosis of breast diseases (author's transl)].

Sonography of the breast is gaining in importance with the spread of diagnostic methods based on ultrasound in general and the increasing technical perfection of the equipment in particular. Over and above this, the increase in incidence of carcinoma of the breast at an increasingly early age represents a permanent challenge to achieve further optimisation of diagnostic methods. The following conclusions have been arrived at after evaluating 493 ultrasonic examinations of the breast, 212 of which were verified histologically (90 carcinomas): 1. If the indication is precise, sonography possesses a high degree of sensitivity in diagnosing any changes occurring in the breast. 2. The method offers particular advantages in patients with manifest signs having a dense parenchyma; in fact, with such patients sonography is often superior to mammography. 3. The additional use of sonography in diagnosis of diseases of the breast improves the results and often facilitates a less aggressive procedure (insofar as biopsies can be omitted). The main drawbacks are the great amount of time required for performing the examination, and the problem of documentation. This has been the major obstacle to using sonography in screening. The article discusses the indications, the typical sonographic criteria and problems of differential diagnosis in relation to the most frequently encountered diseases of the breast.