This poster is published under an
open license. Please read the
disclaimer for further details.
Keywords:
Breast, Ultrasound, Elastography, Biopsy, Cancer
Authors:
P. Kapetas1, P. Clauser1, M. A. Marino1, R. Woitek1, S. Viganò2, M. Bernathova1, K. Pinker-Domenig1, T. H. Helbich1, P. A. T. Baltzer1; 1Vienna/AT, 2Milan/IT
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2016/C-2369
Aims and objectives
Ultrasound (US) of the breast is a valuable adjunct to mammography in the characterization of breast lesions.
Using established diagnostic criteria,
as described in the BI-RADS lexicon [1],
it shows a high sensitivity at a variable but in general moderate specificity [2-5].
Since B-mode US only provides morphological information,
elastography is one of the techniques that have been introduced in breast imaging,
in order to provide additional functional information about breast lesions.
Elastography evaluates the mechanical properties of tissue.
Several approaches have been investigated,
such as strain elastography,
Shear Wave Elastography (SWE) and Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI).
The latter two do not necessitate a manual compression of the breast- a short duration,
high intensity acoustic “pushing pulse” for tissue compression is generated by the US probe.
With the ARFI technology,
the Shear Wave Velocity (SWV) can be measured within the lesion allowing for a quantitative evaluation of tissue elasticity [6].
Recently a new reconstruction algorithm for ARFI imaging has been developed,
namely Virtual Touch IQ (VTIQ) (Siemens Medical Solutions Inc.,
Mountain View,
CA,
USA).
There are several studies showing the efficacy of ARFI imaging in differentiating benign from malignant breast lesions [7; 8].
However,
there are limited literature data evaluating the added value of ARFI imaging to the established BI-RADS descriptors.
Moreover,
the proposed cut-off values are quite divergent and,
to our knowledge,
there are no literature data regarding possible “rule-in” and “rule-out” thresholds for the probability of malignancy.
Therefore our aim was to evaluate the added value of ARFI imaging VTIQ compared to B-mode breast US as well as to identify “rule-in” and “rule-out” thresholds for the probability of malignancy.