Qualitative diagnosis of benign breast lesions and breast carcinoma with elastographic ultrasonic imaging

To investigate the efficacy of ultrasonic elastography in the qualitative diagnosis of malignant and benign breast tumors.

The study included 200 female patients with benign (n=100) and breast carcinomas (n=100) treated between January 2015 and March 2017. Each patient underwent ultrasonic elastography before surgery and registration of the hardness score and lesion area diameter. Postoperatively the diagnosis was pathologically confirmed.

The hardness scores of the benign group were below 3 points while in the malignant group was above 2 points (p <0.05). The average scores of the benign and breast carcinoma groups were 2.4±1.1 and 4.3±0.7 points, respectively. The lesion areas of the malignant group were 2.44 ± 1.63 cm2 and of the benign group 1.03 ± 1.01 cm² (p <0.05). The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and area under the curve (AUC) of ultrasonic elastography in the qualitative diagnosis of breast carcinoma were 86.73, 88.62, 84.47, 87.20, 86.14% and 91%, respectively.

In the qualitative diagnosis of benign and breast carcinomas, ultrasonic elastography can contribute to the accurate diagnosis of the disease and can be used with success in clinical practice.