This poster is published under an
open license. Please read the
disclaimer for further details.
Keywords:
Breast, Elastography, Ultrasound, Diagnostic procedure, Cancer
Authors:
E. Mancuso, E. Maggini, V. Maldur, L. Panebianco, O. Medvedyeva, U. D'Ambrosio, S. C. Ursu, M. Luciani, P. Ricci; Rome/IT
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2015/C-1129
Conclusion
Aim of elastography is to improve performance of conventional B-mode ultrasound and enhance specificity and accuracy in the diagnosis of breast masses,
particularly in questionable cases,
with an examination improve of not more than 5 minutes.
According with our data,
the ASR showed similar results compared to manual acquisition and could therefore be useful,
allowing a sharp reduction of acquisition time.
Future clinical indications can include evaluation of palpable abnormalities and characterization of masses detected at mammography and US imaging,
giving information about elasticity features.
We confirm an imperative need for a prospective study,
with a greater cases number to fully evaluate assess of ASR.
Limitations
According with our experience,
breast elastography have some limitations,
due to structural aspects of the breast nodules and to elastographic technique.
First of all,
the different expression of gland components within population examined and the characteristics and high variability of breast lesions.
Finally the uncertainty on reference parameters,
particularly the need of adequate surrounded share of healthy parenchyma.
Adequate and standardized compressions is also an important factor which may influence elasticity score,
particularly in free hand examination [13].
Elastography is an operator dependent US technique and it requires a good experience to obtain reproducible result [14,15].
Over all,
radiologists performing studies were not blinded to the clinical information [16].
The results in current literature suggested that a better standardization is mandatory,
mainly for compressive elastography.