Role of ultrasonography and elastography of palpable breast masses in pregnancy and lactation with clinical correlation

Abstract

Introduction: Pregnancy and lactation represent unique physiologic states that induce notable changes in the mammary glands. Early detection and diagnosis of breast pathologies by noninvasive modalities is of great demand. In this prospective cross-sectional clinical study conducted among 62 pregnant and lactating patients, we focused on role of sonoelastography in diagnosing clinically suspected breast pathologies among these patient groups. Results: In our study, we concluded sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy of ultrasound strain elastography for differentiating benign and malignant breast masses were calculated to be 92.6%, 90%, 86.6%, 91.4%, and 93.5%, respectively, which is more than the conventional sonography alone which had sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy as 86.21%, 83.5%, 88.6%, 85.3%, and 86.2%, respectively. This finding is found to be matching with the finding of literature studies. Conclusion: Sonoelastography can be used as an imaging modality of choice in diagnosing breast lesions during pregnancy and lactation.