Comparison of the diagnostic efficacy between ultrasound elastography and magnetic resonance imaging for breast masses

Abstract

Abstract. The present study compared the efficacy of ultrasound elastography (UE), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the combination of the two methods (UE+MRI) in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast tumors. In total, 86 patients with breast masses were recruited and evaluated by UE, MRI and UE+MRI. Strain ratios of UE were calculated for the breast mass and adjacent normal tissues. In addition, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was obtained, while the sensitivity and specificity were calculated to determine the optimal cut-off point for the differential diagnosis. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was also calculated to evaluate the diagnostic performance of these methods. The results indicated that the diagnostic accuracy of UE+MRI was significantly higher compared with the UE or MRI methods in the differential diagnosis of invasive ductal, invasive lobular, intraductal papillary, medullary and mucinous carcinomas (all P<0.05). The optimal cut-off points of ROC curve of the Strain Ratio in the diagnosis of breast lesions were 2.81, 3.76 and 3.42 for UE, MRI and UE+MRI, respectively. Furthermore, the AUC values were 86.7, 79.2 and 91.4%, while the diagnostic accuracy rates were 82.5, 75.5 and 95.3%, for UE, MRI and UE+MRI, respectively. Accuracy rate differences between UE and MRI or between UE and UE+MRI were statistically significant (P<0.05), whereas no significant difference existed between MRI and UE+MRI (P>0.05). Finally, the diagnostic consistency of the UE+MRI method with the pathological diagnosis was higher compared with UE or MRI alone. In conclusion, the combination of UE and MRI is superior to the use of UE or MRI alone in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast masses.

Shear-Wave Elastography of Benign versus Malignant Musculoskeletal Soft-Tissue Masses: Comparison with Conventional US and MRI

“…Our results do not support an additional beneit of SWE when used in conjunction with both US and MRI. his is in contrast to studies in breast lesions where SWE and MRI combined outperformed MRI alone (23). It seems that SWE is potentially another variable that cannot be speciic for malignancy in soft-tissue tumors.…”

Strain Ratio as a Quantification Tool in Strain Imaging

“…Strain elastography with SR has been compared to evaluation using a strain histogram with similar good results [7]. SR was reported to be better than magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for breast tumor characterization, but the combination of the two modalities had a better ROC-AUC of 0.914 [8]. Furthermore, for the evaluation of axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer patients, a combined evaluation of B-mode ultrasound (US) and Real-Time Elastography (RTE) increased specificity [9].…”

Comparison of diagnostic efficacy of ultrasound, ultrasound elastography and magnetic resonance imaging for breast lesions

“…In their study, Parajuly et al [30] , reported a higher sensitivity and specificity of conventional USG (91.8% and 84.8%). In another study, study Cheng et al found that USG elastography performed better than MRI in terms of diagnostic accuracy (82.5% as compared to 75.4%) [31] .…”