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This prospective study, involving 1,000 women referred for routine mammography, compares the breast cancer detecting abilities of state-of-the-art mammography and sonography using an automated water-path scanner. Mammography was found to be the superior technique, detecting 62 (97%) of the 64 pathologically proven cancers, while sonography detected only 37 (58%). When considering those cancers most amenable to cure, mammography detected over 90% in all categories, but sonography detected only 48% of the cancers that had not yet spread to axillary lymph nodes, only 30% of the nonpalpable malignancies, and only 8% of the cancers smaller than 1 cm. These data indicate that sonography is not an acceptable substitute for mammography in the detection and diagnosis of breast cancer. The data further suggest that radiologists who wish to improve the cancer-detecting ability of their current breast imaging operation should upgrade their mammography to state-of-the-art status before adding an automated whole-breast ultrasound scanner.

Experience with 2500 patients over age 30 studied by physical examination, x-ray mammography, and sonography enabled definition of several specific clinical situations in which sonography adds meaningful diagnostic information not provided by either of the other examinations. These include: palpable breast masses for cyst-solid differentiation; nonpalpable mammographic masses for cyst-solid differentiation; and women with a symptomatic area in the breast that shows only uniformly dense fibro-glandular tissue on x-ray mammograms. For women with radiographically dense breasts who have no breast symptoms, abnormal physical findings, or mammographic lesions, sonography will identify many benign cysts and also some benign solid lesions, but at best only rarely (none of the 587 cases in this study) will it detect an otherwise occult breast cancer. Our data suggest that sonography should not be a substitute for physical examination and mammography in women over age 30, but rather that in three specific clinical situations it can be a valuable addition to the standard diagnostic evaluation.

A retrospective study was made of 29 consecutive patients who were evaluated for suspected abdominal abscess by at least two of three imaging modalities: gallium-67 scanning, ultrasonography, and computed tomography. No statistically significant difference in accuracy of the findings could be demonstrated. Consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of each imaging modality will often indicate which to use in an individual case. Findings from the three imaging techniques sometimes provided complementary rather than identical information.

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