ROLE OF ULTRASONOGRAPHIC ELASTOGRAPHY IN THE DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS OF BREAST MASSES AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO CLASSICAL ULTRASONOGRAPHIC EVALUATION

Abstract

Introduction: India is experiencing an unprecedented rise in the number of breast cancer cases across all sections of society. Breast cancer is now the most common malignancy in women and the second leading cause of cancer- related mortality. Breast cancer is quite easily and effectively treated, provided it is detected in it's early stages. There is a drastic drop in the survival rates when women present with advanced stage of breast cancer, regardless of the setting. Unfortunately, women in resource-poor and developing countries, like India, generally present at a later stage of disease than women elsewhere, partly due to the absence of effective awareness programs and partly due to the lack of proper mass screening programs Aims And Objectives: The diagnostic performance of elastography in differentiating benign from malignant breast lesions. To assess whether elastography has the potential to reduce the need for breast biopsy /FNAC. Cut off value of Strain Ratio for benign versus malignant breast lesions. Further characterize BI-RADS 3 lesions using elastography Materials And Methods: The study was approved by the GSVM MEDICAL COLLEGE AND LLR HOSPITAL Ethics Committee. All patients that presented to the Radiology and Imaging Department of LLR HOSPITAL for diagnostic work up for breast pathology were included in the study. After obtaining a written and signed informed consent from all patients, they were subjected to conventional B-Mode ultrasonography followed by elastography. All diagnostic breast imaging was done with Samsung RS80A ultrasound machine using linear array transducer of frequency 5-12MHz.Observations & Results: The elastography patterns for each lesion were assessed and documented in color scale. Color images were constructed automatically and displayed as a color-overlay on the B-mode image. The color pattern of each lesion was then evaluated on a scale of 1-5 according to the Tsukuba elasticity scoring system. Conclusion: Strain Ratio cutoff of 3.3 is a sensitive parameter to differentiate benign and malignant breast lesions. Elastography is a specic test for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions. The combined use of elasticity score, strain ratio and B- Mode sonographyincreases the diagnostic performance in distinguishing benign from malignant breast masses.