Application of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the diagnosis of small breast lesions

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. The purpose of the study was to observe the features of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and the combination with Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) of conventional ultrasound for assessing small breast lesions. OBJECTIVES: The study was to explore the small breast lesions' features of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and the combination with Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) of conventional ultrasound, in order to improve the diagnostic accuracy of early breast cancer. METHODS: 105 lesions were subject to conventional US (ultrasound) and CEUS before operations or biopsies. Among 105 breast lesions, six patient diagnoses were established by thick core-needle biopsy, while the rest were all confirmed by surgery and pathology. RESULTS: Significant differences were found between benign and malignant lesions in qualitative and quantitative indexes (peak) of CEUS (P < 0.05). The qualitative features of malignant small breast lesions were as follows: (1) enhanced intensity within the lesion was not uniform (61/61,100%); (2) the speed of wash-in was earlier than the surrounding tissue (58/61, 95.1%); (3) lesion interior and the surrounding tissues had contrast vessel performance (61/61,100%). Peak of malignant lesions (35.77±11.45) was higher than that of benign lesions (31.96±10.76) (P < 0.05). The diagnostic performance of BI-RADS-US plus qualitative indexes (method one) in terms of area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) were the highest (i.e., AUROC = 0.817), in comparison with other combined diagnostic methods. The associated sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 78.69%, 84.09% and 80.95%, respectively. With method one, however, was similar with US-BI-RADS in specificity, 11 malignant breast lesions were regarded as a higher classification of BI-RADS and classified into malignant group, which were identified as benign on US-BI-RADS originally. CONCLUSIONS: CEUS was useful to differentiate benign from malignant small breast lesions, and the combination of CEUS and BI-RADS-US can improve the early diagnosis of breast cancers.