Breast Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound: Is a Scoring System Feasible? ----A Preliminary Study in China

OBJECTIVES: Although many studies about breast contrast-enhanced ultrasound had been conducted, clear diagnostic criteria for evaluating enhancement patterns are still lacking. This study aims to identify significant indicators for breast contrast-enhanced ultrasound and to establish an initial scoring system. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Totally 839 patients were included in the study. This study was divided into two parts. 364 patients were included in part 1 while 475 in part 2. Conventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound were used to examine each lesion. Only the cases in part 2 were also examined by elastography. In part 1, Logistic regression analysis was performed to predict significant variables. A 5-point scoring system was developed based on the results. In part 2, the scoring system was used to evaluate all the breast lesions. To evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the new scoring system, it was compared with the system established for elastography and conventional ultrasound (BI-RADS). RESULTS: Three independent variables, namely, lesion scope, margin, and shape were selected in the final step of the logistic regression analysis in part 1. In part 2, the area under the ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curve for the contrast-enhanced scoring system was 0.912. The difference in the diagnostic capabilities of the contrast-enhanced scoring system and elastography was not statistically significant (P = 0.17). The difference in the diagnostic capabilities of the contrast-enhanced scoring system and BI-RADS was statistically significant (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The contrast-enhanced patterns of benign and malignant breast tumors are different. The application of a 5-point scoring system for contrast-enhanced ultrasound is clinically promising.