[Ultrasound diagnosis of regional lymph node metastasis of the neck in patients with head-neck neoplasms: sono-morphologic criteria and diagnostic accuracy].

High resolution sonography is generally considered a diagnostic tool with high sensitivity but low specificity in the assessment of cervical lymph node metastases. This study shows, that excellent sonographic results regarding sensitivity and specificity can be achieved, if sonomorphologic parameters, such as size, shape, delineation and type of echo pattern are included in the evaluation. We compared sonomorphology and histology of 82 patients operated for head and neck malignancies.