[Differentiation of abdominal lymphadenoptahy with power Doppler sonography]

Recent studies have reported high accuracy of power Doppler sonography (PDS) and color Doppler sonography (CDS) in the differentiation of benign and malignant peripheral superficial lymphadenopathy. This study was conducted to determine whether PDS can differentiate benign from malignant abdominal lymph nodes on the basis of defined vascular patterns.

We retrospectively evaluated 88 color pictures of abdominal lymph nodes (39 benign lymph nodes, 24 malignant lymphomas, 25 lymph node metastasis) done in the power Doppler mode. The goal was to determine whether benign and malignant abdominal lymph nodes can be differentiated in power Doppler sonography on the basis of 9 defined vascular patterns.

Three vascular patterns showed a significantly (p < 0.05) higher appearance in malignant than in benign lymph nodes: aberrant vessel (specificity 87 %), avascular focus (specificity 92 %) and subcapsular vessel (specificity 100 %). The vascular pattern hiliar vessel showed a significantly higher appearance in benign lymph nodes (specificity 87.8 %).

Three vascular patterns are detectable in power Doppler mode (avascular focus, aberrant vessel, subcapsular vessel) in abdominal lymph nodes, which are typical for malignant abdominal lymphadenopathy. The presence of one of these vascular patterns means with a high specificity (87 - 100 %) that an abdominal lymphadenopathy is malignant. One vascular pattern (hiliar vessel) shows a significantly higher appearance in benign lymph nodes.