The role of Sonoelastography in characterization of solid breast lesions

Abstract Background Mammography and Sonography are the important sensitive imaging modalities available in detection of breast cancer. Sonoelastography is a relatively new imaging technique which acts as a complementary tool to improve the diagnostic ability of ultrasound for evaluating patients with breast masses. Objective To evaluate the role of sonoelastography characterization information on solid breast lesions over conventional sonography and mammography either benign or malignant lesions to reduce the number of benign biopsies performed. Methods A prospective study was carried at private centers, starting from august 2019 till december 2019. Results The study conducted on 40 patients with palpable breast lesions classified to BIRADS 3 and 4a according to conventional ultrasound and mammographic criteria. Their ages ranged from 18 to '75 years with a mean age 47.72 14.91, 22 cases (55%) had no family history of pervious breast disease, and 18 cases (45%) had family history of pervious breast disease. All patients were subjected to full history taking, clinical examination, conventional gray scale ultrasound, and mammography and ultrasound elastography. All patients underwent histopathological assessment to reach the final diagnosis. Among Studied cases , 28 lesions were sampled by fine needle biopsy (70%) and 12 lesions were sampled by true cut needle (30%) .the results revealed 27 breast lesions were benign (67.5%), 9 malignant lesions (22.5%) and 4 lesions shows atypia (10%) according to histopathological assessment. Among final diagnosis of breast lesions fibro adenoma was the most frequent benign breast lesion detected as 12 lesions from 27 benign breast lesions were fibroadenoma., Also infiltrative ductal carcinoma was the moste frequent among malignant breast lesions as 5 lesions from 9 malignant lesions were infiltrative ductal carcinoma. Conclusion Ultrasoundelastography has significant complementray role beside conventional mammogram and ultrasound in characterization of solid breast lesions.