Accuracy of conventional ultrasound, contrast-enhanced ultrasound and dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging in assessing the size of breast cancer

OBJECTIVE: This study was performed to investigate the accuracy of conventional ultrasound (US), contrast-enhanced US (CEUS), and dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) in assessing the size of breast cancer. METHODS: In total, 49 breast cancer lesions of 48 patients were included in this study. The inclusion criteria were the performance of total mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery for treatment of breast cancer in our hospital from January 2017 to December 2020 with complete pathological results, as well as the performance of conventional US, CEUS, and DCE-MRI examinations with complete results. The exclusion criteria were non-mass breast cancer shown on conventional US or DCE-MRI, including that found on CEUS with no boundary with surrounding tissues and no confirmed tumor scope; a tumor too large to be completely displayed in the US section, thus affecting the measurement results; the presence of two nodules in the same breast that were too close to each other to be distinguished by any of the three imaging methods; and treatment with preoperative chemotherapy. Preoperative conventional US, CEUS, and DCE-MRI examinations were performed. The postoperative pathological results were taken as the gold standard. The lesion size was represented by its maximum diameter. The accuracy, overestimation, and underestimation rates of conventional US, CEUS, and DCE-MRI were compared. RESULTS: The maximum lesion diameter on US, CEUS, DCE-MRI and pathology were 1.62 +/- 0.63 cm (range, 0.6-3.5 cm), 2.05 +/- 0.75 cm (range, 1.0-4.0 cm), 1.99 +/- 0.74 cm (range, 0.7-4.2 cm) and 1.92 +/- 0.83 cm (range, 0.5-4.0 cm), respectively. The lesion size on US was significantly smaller than that of postoperative pathological tissue (P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference between the CEUS or DCE-MRI results and the pathological results. The underestimation rate of conventional US (55.1%, 27/49) was significantly higher than that of CEUS (20.4%, 10/49) and DCE-MRI (24.5%, 12/49) (P<0.001 and P=0.002, respectively). There was no significant difference in the accuracy of CEUS (36.7%, 18/49) and DCE-MRI (34.7%, 17/49) compared with conventional US (26.5%, 13/49); however, the accuracy of both groups tended to be higher than that of conventional US. The overestimation rate of CEUS (42.9%, 21/49) and DCE-MRI (40.8%, 20/49) was significantly higher than that of conventional US (18.4%, 9/49) (P=0.001 and P=0.015, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: CEUS and DCE-MRI show similar performance when evaluating the size of breast cancer. However, CEUS is more convenient, has a shorter operation time, and has fewer restrictions on its use. Notably, conventional US is more prone to underestimate the size of lesions, whereas CEUS and DCE-MRI are more prone to overestimate the size.