Diagnoses of breast masses with ultrasonography and elastography: A comparative study

Context : Non-invasive diagnoses of breast masses remain a challenge to the clinician. Elastography, a new modality using elastic property of breast tissue can effectively differentiate between malignant and benign breast masses minimizing the need for aggressive unnecessary biopsy. Aim: The aim is to evaluate elastography to ascertain whether the differentiation and characterization of benign and malignant breast lumps could be done with it, comparing with the conventional sonography. Settings and Design : Single institutional prospective study. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted on 82 patients with palpable breast lumps. All these cases were subjected to a thorough clinical examination, sonography, elastography, and pathological diagnosis. Results of sonography and elastography were compared considering the pathological diagnosis as standard. Statistical Analysis : Statistical analysis was performed with the McNemar test. All data analysis was conducted using SPSS software (SPSS Inc.). Results: It was observed that the USG diagnosis of carcinoma tallied with the pathological diagnosis in only 88.9% of cases (i.e. 48 out of 54 cases) and the elastographic diagnosis of carcinoma tallied with the pathological diagnosis in 96.3% (i.e. 52 out of 54). On the other hand, out of 34 and 30 cases diagnosed as benign lesions on USG and elastography, respectively, only 28 cases were proved to be benign pathologically. Conclusion: Elastography was found to be more sensitive, specific, and accurate than sonography.