Objective:

The aim of this study was to assess the value of a new technique of shear wave speed (SWS) imaging in quantitativy differentiating benign from malignant breast lesions.

Methods:

109 breast lesions in109 patients who underwent routine ultrasonography (US) and SWS imaging before surgical excision were analyzed. The quantitative

SWS imaging parameters including: Mean and SD of shear wave speed (m/s) and elasticity modulus ( kPa) value and ratio referenced as normal breast tissue were obtained

respectively. The lesions were categorized into three groups according to size (group 1

10 mm; group 2

10-20 mm; and group 3

20 mm). According to pathologic results

ROC curve was drawn to evaluate the best cut-off value in differentiating benign from malignant lesions. Diagnostic performances of SWS imaging parameters were calculated and compared.

Results:

There were 85 benign nodules and 24malignant nodules of the 109 breast lesions. The elastic values of malignant nodules were significant higher than those of benign one(all

P

0.001)

except for group1(10 mm). For diagnostic performance in all groups

the values of E-mean were higher than SD and ratio

(all

P

0.01).On ROC curve

the area under the curve (AUC) of group 3 were higher than group 1 and 2. No significant differences of AUC between SWS imaging parameters were found (all

P

0.05). Taking 39.20 kPa and 3.51 m/s as the cut-off values

sensitivity of 86.7% and 86.7%

specificity of 100% and 100% were achieved ( all

P

0.001). No significant differences of SWS imaging parameters between Young's elastic modulus and shear wave speed (SWS) were found (all

P

0.05).

Conclusion:

The new technique of shear imaging is helpful for the differential diagnosis of breast lesions.