EVALUATION OF THE SONOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF MALIGNANT BREAST MASSES

Breast sonography is a common technique in the assessment of breast ma sses. By this modality 114 patients (age 23-75 years) with breast mass es were studied and 107 of them were suspected to have malignancy. The diagnosis was based on common sonographic features which included wal l contour, echogenicity, echo pattern, posterior-attenuating shadow an d lesion length-to-width ratio. Eighty-four and seven-tenths percent o f the masses had jagged wall contour, 84.7% were echo-poor, and 76.6% had a heterogeneous echo pattern. Sixty-five and eight tenths percent had posterior-attenuating shadows. Eighty-two and nine-tenths percent were spherically shaped or anteroposteriorly elongated. Using these fe atures, the positive detection rate for malignancy was 91.2%. In concl usion, sonographic diagnosis of breast malignancies can be used in the assessment of breast masses.