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Ultrasound can estimate the pathologic size of infiltrating ductal carcinoma
C A Finlayson1, T A MacDermott
1Department of Surgery, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver 80262, USA. christina.finlayson@uchsc.edu
Hypothesis:
Ultrasound (US) of the breast will accurately measure breast tumor size when compared with size as determined by pathologic examination.
Design:
Retrospective case series.
Setting:
University hospital-based breast center.
Patients:
Thirty-five women with a diagnosis of breast cancer who had US as a component of their evaluation.
Main Outcome Measure:
Tumor size as measured by US compared with size measured by pathologic examination.
Results:
Size measured by US ranged from 0.45 to 3.81 cm. Size measured by pathologic examination ranged from 0.5 to 5 cm. The mean difference of size measured by US vs pathologic size was 0.4 cm (P = .01). When only tumors with invasive ductal histology are evaluated, the mean difference in size is 0.33 cm (P = .008). The range of difference was -1.6 cm to +0.42 cm. Seventeen percent of invasive ductal tumors were underestimated by more than 1 cm; none were underestimated by more than 2 cm.
Conclusions:
This study demonstrates that, although US tends to underestimate the pathologic tumor size, 83% of invasive ductal tumors fall within a 1-cm and 100% fall within a 2-cm extension of the US-measured tumor size. Therefore, it is possible to use US to monitor the extent of treatment size when developing very localized therapeutic tools.