A qualitative and quantitative assessment of simultaneous strain, shear wave, and point shear wave elastography to distinguish malignant and benign breast lesions.

Background: Ultrasound (US) elastography has become a routine instrument in ultrasonographic diagnosis that measures the consistency and stiffness of tissues.

Purpose: To distinguish benign and malignant breast masses using a single US system by comparing the diagnostic parameters of three kinds of breast elastography simultaneously added to B-mode ultrasonography.

Material And Methods: A total of 163 breast lesions in 159 consecutive women who underwent US-guided core needle biopsy were included in this prospective study. Before the biopsy, the lesions were examined with B-mode ultrasonography and strain (SE), shear wave (SWE), and point shear wave (STQ) elastography. The strain ratio was computed and the Tsukuba score determined. The mean elasticity values using SWE and STQ were computed and converted to Young's modulus E (kPa).

Results: All SE, SWE, and STQ parameters showed similar diagnostic performance. The SE score, SE ratio, SWE, SWE, STQ, and STQ yielded higher specificity than B-mode US alone to differentiate benign and malignant masses. The sensitivity of B-mode US, SWE, and STQ was slightly higher than that of the SE score and SE ratio. The SE score, SE ratio, SWE, SWE, STQ, and STQ had significantly higher positive predictive value and diagnostic accuracy than B-mode US alone. The area under the curve for each of these elastography methods in differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions was 0.93, 0.93, 0.98, 0.97, 0.98, and 0.96, respectively; <0.001 for all measurements.

Conclusion: SE (ratio and score), SWE, and STQ had higher diagnostic performance individually than B-mode US alone in distinguishing between malignant and benign breast masses.