The Italian experience with SH U 508 A (Levovist) in breast disease.

The authors report their experience with color Doppler US of breast disease with a new parenteral contrast agent--i.e., SH U 508 A (Levovist)--in an international multicenter experimental trial. Over a 9-month period, 17 patients with 19 solid breast lesions were examined. A baseline color Doppler study was performed on every patient, together with a second exam after injecting the contrast agent into a peripheral vein to investigate possible changes in the depiction of tumor vessels, inside and around the lesions. The 19 nodules included 16 infiltrating ductal carcinomas, 2 fibroadenomas and 1 benign phylloid tumor. Levovist improved the depiction of tumor vessels in all cases and helped detect new vascular signals which had been missed on baseline images. The increase in color Doppler signal was graded as marked and mild: in 68.75% of ductal carcinomas and in the benign phylloid tumor signal increase was marked, while in 31.25% of carcinomas and in fibroadenomas signal increase was mild. All lesions exhibited vascular signals both inside and around the lesion; many afferent poles were also depicted. Our results demonstrate that conventional color Doppler semiology changes with the use of a contrast agent and pave the way for further studies on larger series of cases to assess new diagnostic criteria to differentiate breast lesions according to color Doppler signal patterns.