A COMPARISON BETWEEN ULTRASONOGRAPHY AND MAMMOGRAPHY, COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY AND DIGITAL SUBTRACTION ANGIOGRAPHY FOR THE DETECTION OF BREAST CANCERS

Ultrasound (US) was compared with mammography (MMG), computed tomograp hy (CT), and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in its effectivenes s to detect breast cancer masses and metastatic axillary nodes. Forty- seven breast cancer patients who all underwent MMG, US, CT, and DSA pr eoperatively in our institution between 1986 and 1990 were studied. US was able to detect tumors in all cases regardless of tumor size, wher eas DSA detected T1-size tumors and MMG detected T2-size tumors in 40% and 64.7% of cases, respectively, being specifically inferior to US. It was found that MMG was least likely to detect papillotubular carcin oma, although microcalcification alone without a tumor mass on MMG imp roved detectability from 46.2% to 76.9%, according to the histological type. CT was found to be most sensitive to axillary node metastases ( 81.8%), followed by US (72.7%), but DSA was significantly unfavorable (42.9%). Thus, we concluded that US was superior to MMG, CT, and DSA f or detecting breast cancer masses, but that CT was more advantageous t han US, while DSA was of little value for evaluating axillary nodal st atus.