Association of conventional ultrasound, elastography and clinicopathological factors with axillary lymph node status in invasive ductal breast carcinoma with sizes > 10 mm

BACKGROUND: To evaluate whether conventional ultrasound, elastography [conventional strain elastography of elasticity imaging, acoustic radiation force impulse induced strain elastography of virtual touch tissue imaging, and a novel two-dimensional shear wave elastography of virtual touch tissue imaging quantification] and clinicopathological factors are associated with axillary lymph node metastasis in invasive ductal breast carcinoma with sizes > 10 mm. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We evaluated 150 breast lesions from 148 patients using the above methods and the clinicopathological factors. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed to determine the axillary lymph node metastasis risk factors. Diagnostic performance was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. RESULTS: Sixty-three tumors (42%) were node-positive, 87 (58%) were node-negative. Aspect ratio, virtual touch tissue imaging grade, shear wave velocity, pathological invasive tumor size, and histological grade maintained independent significance in predicting nodal involvement. The mean tumor shear wave velocitys (4.60, 6.49, 7.16) increased in proportion to metastatic node number (0, 1–3, ≥ 4, respectively; P < 0.001). For all tumors in this study, the cut-off shear wave velocity was 6.16 m/s and was associated with 64.1% sensitivity, 78.0% specificity and an area under the ROC curve of 0.799 (95% confidence interval, 0.731–0.868). CONCLUSIONS: Aspect ratio, virtual touch tissue imaging grade, shear wave velocity, pathological invasive tumor size and histological grade are independently associated with axillary lymph node metastasis in invasive ductal breast carcinoma with sizes > 10 mm.