Recent advances in breast sonography

Breast sonography has come to maturity during the past decade. Recent and ongoing technological developments include higher-frequency wideband transducers, 2-D array phased-array technology, extended-field-of-view imaging, three-dimensional sonography, higher-sensitivity color and power Doppler imaging, contrast agents, and harmonic imaging. Applications of breast sonography have thus expanded, with more reliable tissue characterization and differentiation between benign and malignant diseases and improved staging of cancer patients. Sonography has become the guidance technique of choice not only for percutaneous needle biopsy but also for many other interventional procedures involving nonpalpable breast masses. In selected cases, sonography can even be used to biopsy or localize calcifications that can be clearly identified on sonography. A growing field of research is ultrasound-guided percutaneous ablation of breast lesions using cryotherapy or radiofrequency.