Ultrasonic diagnosis of metastatic axillary lymph nodes in patients with breast carcinoma

Objective To evaluate the ability of ultrasound(US) and colour Doppler scans to detect axillary lymph nodes (LN) in patients with breast carcinoma. Methods US and colour Doppler scans of both breasts and axillae were carried out in 1183 patients with breast carcinoma. The ultrasound classification was correlated with the results of pathological examination after axillary LN dissection. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy were calculated. Results The accuracy of combinating US and colour Doppler scans for axillary LN involvement was 84.6%, with the sensitivity 73.2%, specificity 94.0%, PPV 90.9% and the NPV 81.0%.The sensitivity was as low as 45.3% when the involved LN was less than 10 mm in maximum dimension. Conclusions Combination of US and colour Doppler scanning is valuable in the detection of axillary metastatic LN in patients with breast carcinoma, but the sensitivity of metastatic LN smaller than 10.0 mm is expected to be improved.