Role of sonographic elastography in the differential diagnosis of papillary lesions in breast

The purpose of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of elastography, conventional ultrasonography (US) and combined conventional US and elastography for differentiation of papillary breast lesions. A total of 95 papillary lesions (69 benign, 20 atypical and 6 malignant) in 87 patients were examined with conventional US and elastography. We evaluated conventional US images according to the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System and internal composition (solid vs. cystic) and elastographic images according to elasticity scores. We compared diagnostic performances of elastography, conventional US and the combined method. Areas under the receiver-operating curve were 0.794 for elastography, 0.875 for conventional US and 0.787 for the combined method. When the elasticity score cutoff was between 2 and 3, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 100, 55.1, 13 and 100 %, respectively. The combined method showed similar sensitivity (100 vs. 100 %) to and higher specificity (57.3 vs. 5.6 %) than conventional US alone. No significant difference was found in the elasticity scores of cystic papillary lesions according to pathology. Elastography improved the specificity of conventional US in differentiating between benign or atypical and malignant papillary breast lesions when it was combined with conventional US.