Breast Cancers Initially Detected by Hand-Held Ultrasound (HHUS): Detection Performance of Radiologists using 3D Breast US Data Obtained by a Commercially Available Automated Breast US System (ABUS)

  • Dr Woo Kyung Moon, Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Korea
  • Dr Jung Min Chang, Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Korea
  • Bilateral whole breast US was obtained using a commercially available ABUS (U-systems) in 61 consecutive women who were scheduled to undergo US guided needle biopsy due to suspicious breast masses detected at supplemental screening HHUS. Finally 14 cancers in 13 women (aged 35-50 years; mean, 40.3 years) were found and mean lesion size of IDC was 0.56cm (range, 0.2-1.5cm). For the control group, 48 normal breasts were selected from 48 women. Three breast radiologists (experience range 5-11 years), who did not perform the examinations and blinded to clinicopathologic information, independently reviewed 3D breast volume data of 61 (13 diseased and 48 normal) breasts to detect any suspicious lesions and documented the lesion features and BI-RADS final assessment. Sensitivities of each reader for cancer detection were 78.6% (11/14), 78.6% (11/14) and 57.1% (8/14), respectively, with false positive rates of 20.8% (10/48), 12.5% (6/48) and 8.3% (4/48). Seven cancers (conspicuity score 5 in three, 4 in two, 3 in one and 2 in one; mean size at US, 1.7cm, range 0.5-5.0cm) were detected by all three readers, four were detected by two readers, and one was detected by only one reader. Two invasive cancers were not detected by all three reviewers. Only 57.1-78.6% of HHUS detected cancers were depicted by the radiologists when they read the 3D breast volume data obtained by a commercially available ABUS.