Elastography in breast tumors

  In the diagnosis of breast diseases, palpation has been used for centuries as a basic and effective clinical examination method, and it seems to be the natural and preferred method for doctors to diagnose breast tumors or other lesions by palpation. However, with the progress of medicine and the development of new clinical examination techniques, people gradually realize that palpation is only a subjective judgment, which is closely related to the experience of the examiner and lacks objective quantitative indicators. “Perspective eye”, can be faster and more accurate diagnosis of disease. Today, this new ultrasound examination method – elastography has come into being and benefit the public.  In recent years, breast diseases are increasing, clinical preference through palpation to determine the presence of lumps and their benign and malignant, and when the tumor is small or away from the body surface tissue may not be palpable or can not be judged its benign and malignant, at this time, ultrasound examination plays an irreplaceable and important role in the diagnosis of breast diseases. At present, clinical ultrasonography mainly relies on two-dimensional and color Doppler ultrasound to judge the pathological nature of breast tumors, but in practice, it is often observed that the two-dimensional ultrasound sonograms of breast tumors that are diagnosed as benign and malignant respectively are identical hypoechoic masses, and similarly, the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast tumors by color Doppler ultrasound also has certain limitations However, it is known that most of the malignant tumors are not the same.  However, it is well known that most malignant tumors consist of hard lesions with adhesions to nearby structures, which decrease their mobility and decrease their elasticity, thus increasing their hardness, whereas benign lesions are almost always softer lesions with a more intact envelope or similar hardness to the glandular tissue. Therefore, using the feature that the elasticity coefficient of malignant tumors is much larger than that of normal glands or benign lesions, the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant tumors of the breast can be made.  With the clinical application of the new ultrasound technology, elastography, this idea of “palpation” through the instrument has become a reality. During the examination, the ultrasound probe is used to help find lesions that are different from the hardness of normal breast tissue, which is equivalent to the principle of palpation by hand, detecting the softness of the lump and imaging it with different color signals, with the softer lesions automatically displayed in red or green, and malignant lesions in blue, etc., which is eye-catching and intuitive, providing a new and effective way to diagnose and distinguish benign and malignant breast tumors.