Screening Breast Lesions Using Shear Modulus and Its 1-mm Shell in Sound Touch Elastography

Abstract The aim of the study described here was to screen breast lesions using either or both shear modulus ( G ) and its 1-mm shell ( S ) in sound touch elastography through a retrospective study of 209 consecutive women with breast lesions. The ability of G and S data to differentiate between malignant and benign lesions was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The optimal cutoff point, sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (LR+) and negative likelihood ratio (LR–) were calculated. Then, the parameters were pooled to determine the area under the summary receiver operating curve (AUSROC). The pooled sensitivity (PSen), pooled specificity (PSpe), pooled LR+ (PLR+), pooled LR– (PLR–) and diagnostic score (DS) were calculated. Pathologic examination results were used as the reference. In total, 209 patients with 155 benign and 54 malignant lesions were enrolled. For G max , G mean and G sd , the cutoff values were 35.15 kPa ( p  = 0.0001), 10.18 kPa ( p  = 0.0001) and 5.18 kPa ( p  = 0.0001), respectively. For S max , S mean and S sd , the cutoff values were 40.94 kPa ( p  = 0.001), 13.12 kPa ( p  = 0.0001) and 7.97 kPa ( p  = 0.0001), respectively. There were no significant differences in G min and S min between benign and malignant lesions. For the pooled six parameters, the PSen, PSpe, PLR+, PLR–, DS and AUSROC were 86% (95% confidence interval: 82%–89%), 82% (80%–85%), 4.90 (4.24–5.68), 0.17 (0.13–0.22), 3.36 (3.00–3.72) and 91% (88–93%), respectively. The G and S parameters of sound touch elastography could provide valuable data for the evaluation of breast lesions. Additionally, use of multiple parameters or combined use of the six parameters may be more effective in the evaluation of breast lesions.