To evaluate the diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) combined with the con-vent
ional ultrasound (US) including color Doppler flow and grey-scale US of breast cancer in predicting metastatic axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer patients.
Methods:
The conventional US and CEUS features of axillary nodes of 234 patients were retrospect-tively analysed. Different US patterns and parameters were evaluated. The correlation of US patterns and parameters with prognostic factors was analysed with the t test
chi-squared tests
receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and logistic regression analysis.
Results:
Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that cortical thickness was the most accurate parameter for diagnosing malignant axillary lymph nodes [
P
<0.001
area under curve (AUC)=0.808]. Lymph node types of grey-scale US (
P
<0.001
AUC=0.786)
vascular pattern (
P
<0.001
AUC=0.773)
enhancement pattern (
P
<0.001
AUC=0.662) was statistically significant in identifying benign and malignant lymph nodes. Absence of hilum
non-perihilar vessel and resistance index (RI) 0.7 has high specificity in diagnosing metastatic lymph nodes (97.7%
94.6%
98.4%)
but low sensitivity (31.7%
59.6%
26.0%). The sensitivity
specificity and AUC of conventional US in the diagnosis of metastatic lymph nodes were 93.3%
66.2% and 0.797. The sensitivity
specificity and AUC of CEUS in the diagnosis of metastatic lymph nodes were 46.2%
86.2% and 0.662
respectively. Convention-al US combined with CEUS showed a sensitivity of 96.2%
a specificity of 59.2%
and an AUC of 0.777 in identifying benign andmalignant lymph nodes. There was no significant difference between conventional US and conventional US combined with CEUS (
P
=0.146).
Conclusion:
Conventional US has a certain significance in the diagnosis of axillary lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer. As an auxiliary method
CEUS cannot improve the accuracy of conventional US.