Objective:

To investigate the diagnostic value of strain ratio (SR) and area ratio in breast lesions by realtime tissue elastography.

Methods:

Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) classification was used to score the solid breast lesions in 139 cases before surgery. QLab software was used to analyze SR and area ratio of lesions. The pathological results were chosen as the gold standard

and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted for SR and area ratio to find the c

ritical point distinguishing the benign and malignant breast lesions. The diagnostic efficiency of the two indicators was analyzed.

Results:

The area under ROC curve of SR was 0.953

and that of area ratio was 0.918. When the cutoff point for SR was determined as 2.50

the sensitivity

specificity

accuracy

positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 88.0% (44/50)

89.8% (114/127)

89.3% (158/177)

77.2 (44/57) and 95.0% (114/120) in identifying malignant breast lesions. When the cutoff point for area ratio was determined as 0.94

the sensitivity

specificity

accuracy

positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 84.0% (42/50)

87.4% (111/127)

86.4% (153/177)

72.4% (42/58) and 93.3% (111/119) in identifying malignant breast lesions. While the traditional ultrasounds sensitivity

specificity

accuracy

positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 90.0% (45/50)

81.1% (103/127)

83.6% (148/177)

65.2% (45/69) and 95.4% (103/108)

respectively.

Conclusion:

SR and area ratio of real-time tissue elastography improve the specificity of ultrasonic diagnosis

and is helpful in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast lesions.