IMAGE-DIRECTED COLOR DOPPLER ULTRASONOGRAPHY IN THE EVALUATION OF SUPERFICIAL SOLID TUMORS

Image-directed color Doppler ultrasonography (ICDUS) studies of 86 pat ients with superficial solid masses yielded significantly lower resist ive index (RI) values in acute inflammatory lesions, but no significan t difference between the maximum systolic flow velocities (S) of the p atient groups with malignant, benign, and acute inflammatory lesions. When analyzed separately, the malignant soft-tissue tumor subgroup was shown to have significantly higher mean RI compared to that of the ma lignant node subgroup. We conclude that RI may be useful in the differ entiation of acute inflammatory masses from other pathological entitie s. Malignant soft-tissue tumors, especially sarcomas, may have differe nt Doppler features from those of carcinomatous tumors. (C) 1995 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.