Diagnostic performance of coronal view in comparison with transverse view of three-dimensional automated breast...

Automated breast ultrasound (ABUS) is one of the first ultrasound devices which enables the de-coupling of image acquisition and interpretation. Another feature of ABUS is the coronal view, utilizing three-dimensional volume data reconstructed from two-dimensional transverse images acquired automatically.

To assess the diagnostic performance of coronal view interpretation by comparing it with that of the transverse view.

This was a retrospective, multi-case, observer study using a cancer-enriched dataset of ABUS images at a single institution with approval by an Institutional Review Board. The 100 scan datasets selected between October 2014 and January 2017 included 70 non-cancer cases and 30 malignancies. In the present observer study, two experienced physicians provided their confidence levels regarding the malignancy of each of the 100 scan datasets independently. The reading times for interpretation of coronal and transverse views were recorded.

Area under the receiver operating characteristic curves for two observers with the transverse view (0.856) was improved by use of the coronal view (0.917, P = 0.036). The average reading times were 140.4 s with the coronal view and 148.5 s with the transverse view per scan dataset (P = 0.246).

It is conceivable that the accurate use of the coronal view will lead to improvement in diagnostic performance in breast cancer screening, although this needs to be confirmed with a larger prospective study.