Utility of Ultrasound Elastography to Differentiate Benign from Malignant Cervical Lymph Nodes.

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of strain elastography and acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging in the differentiation of benign and malignant cervical lymph nodes (LNs).

Materials And Methods: In this prospective study, 50 enlarged cervical LNs (33 benign and 17 malignant) were examined by B-mode ultrasound (US), color Doppler, and strain elastography. Elastographic patterns (1-5) were categorized based on distribution of hard area within LN.