Color Doppler sonography of normal breasts: Detectability of arterial blood vessels and typical flow patterns

In a prospective study, 200 healthy female breasts were examined using colo r Doppler sonography to study the detectability and the resistive indices ( RIs) of arterial vessels, In each breast, we attempted to detect two to thr ee vessels and recorded the frequency spectrum with RI of each vessel. Bloo d vessels (n = 522) could be demonstrated in 196 (98%) breasts. Continuous diastolic flow (RI < 1) was found in 520 (99.6%) vessels. The mean RI of pr emenopausal women was 0.64; that of postmenopausal women was 0.70. This dif ference is highly statistically significant (p < 0.0001), but there is a ma rked overlap between the RIs of both groups. The variation in RI values of all women (up to 0.45), as web as in the breasts of the same woman (up to 0 .31), was considerable. We conclude that modern color Doppler devices permi t the detection of blood flow in the breast with regularity. Continuous dia stolic flow (RI < 1) is a typical how pattern. The variations of RI between women, and even for the same woman, are remarkable. The mean RI of premeno pausal women is lower than the value for postmenopausal women. (C) 1998 Wor ld Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.