Qualitative and quantitative contrast-enhanced ultrasonography for the characterisation of non-palpable testicular tumours.

Clin Radiol

Department of Adult Diagnosis and Interventional Radiology, Bicetre University Hospital, 78 avenue du Général Leclerc, 94270 Le Kremlin Bicêtre, France; Institut Langevin, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University CNRS UMR 7587, INSERM U979, 17 rue Moreau, 75012 Paris, France; Paris South Medical University, 63 rue Gabriel Péri, 94270 Le Kremlin Bicêtre, France.

Published: March 2018

Aim: To assess the diagnostic performance of conventional ultrasound (US) and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) in the differential diagnosis of non-palpable intratesticular tumours.

Materials And Methods: The local ethics review board approved the protocol, and all of the patients provided written informed consent. Between December 2011 and February 2014, men with non-palpable testicular tumours and normal tumour markers who were referred for surgery were included. The tumours were analysed by conventional US, including B-mode and colour Doppler US (CDUS) as well as by CEUS. Morphological aspects and qualitative and quantitative CEUS criteria, based on visual enhancement and time-intensity curves, were assessed for each lesion.

Results: Forty patients were ultimately included. Based on histopathological results, the tumours were classified into three groups: benign tumours (n=16), malignant tumours (n=15), and burned-out tumours (n=9). In B-mode, the morphological aspects were significantly different between benign and malignant tumours (p-values from 0.0002 to 0.008). Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the CEUS images revealed that burned-out tumours exhibited significantly less enhancement than malignant and benign tumours: in burned-out tumours, time-intensity curves were flat, whereas in both benign and malignant tumours the curves had a bell-shaped pattern. All intensity parameters were lower for burned-out tumours compared to benign and malignant tumours (p-value from 0.0001 to 0.026). Both benign and malignant tumours enhanced strongly, however, and no significant difference between the two was noted (p-value from 0.0721 to 0.0953).

Conclusion: Unlike conventional US, which enable benign lesions to be differentiated from malignant or burned-out tumours, CEUS failed to enabled differentiation between benign lesions and malignant vascularised testicular tumours. CEUS appears to have the potential, however, to differentiate burned-out tumours from vascularised testicular tumours.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crad.2017.10.007DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

burned-out tumours
24
malignant tumours
20
tumours
19
testicular tumours
16
benign malignant
16
qualitative quantitative
12
contrast-enhanced ultrasonography
8
non-palpable testicular
8
morphological aspects
8
time-intensity curves
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!