Purpose
The objective of this study is to evaluate the elastographic characteristics of some soft tissue lesions based on elastographic scores (ES) for a benign vs.
malignant differential diagnosis,
in order to determine the diagnostic performance of real-time elastography.
Methods and Materials
From September 2016 to July 2017,
the conventional ultrasonography examination (US),supplementedby real-time free-hand elastography,
was performed in 34 consecutive patientsintheevaluationof some soft tissues lesions localized to the neck,
tunk and limbs,
at "IRCCS G.
Pascale Foundation",
in Naples,
Italy.
First,
conventional US images of the soft tissues lesion were obtained and then,
after identification of a target lesion,
real-time elastography was performed using the same probe.
The lesions were classified according to elastographic scores based on the different strain within the tissue.
Strain is smaller...
Results
The 34 lesions analysed showed the following pattern: 2ES,
5 ES2,
15 ES3,
8 ES4,
4 ES5.In particular,
7/7 lesions with pattern ES1/ES2,
predictor of benignity,
as well as 12/12 lesions with ES4/ES5 patterns,
predictor of malignancy,
were all been confirmed with histologic/clinical diagnosis as very negative (VN) and very positive (VP),
respectively.
Instead in the 15 cases with ES3 pattern,
predictor of probable benignity,
only 8/10 were confirmed as true negative in histology,
while the remaining 7/15 were found as false negative in histology....
Conclusion
In our preliminary experience,
Elastographic examination may assist,
in addition to the Utrasound and colorDoppler,
the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant soft tissue lesions.
In the ES3 pattern,
the role of elastography is very limited as our data demonstrated,
while in the other patterns there was complete clinical/histological concordance.
However,
further studies will berequired in order to improve understanding and interpreting elastography findings in soft tissue lesions.