ECR: Coronal reconstruction on ABUS helps avoid false negatives

Careful consideration of results from coronal reconstruction on automated breast ultrasound (ABUS) can help clinicians avoid false negatives, according to study results shared February 29 at ECR 2024. The fact that ABUS is capable of this 3D technique differentiates it from handheld ultrasound, said presenter Elizabet Nikolova, MD, of University Hospital of Zürich in Switzerland. In a study she conducted with colleagues, two women were diagnosed with invasive carcinoma on follow-up after initial ultrasound findings were classified as BI-RADS 2. "Both lesions were already visible in previous ABUS and mammography and the 'retraction phenomenon sign' [which is highly specific for distinguishing benign from malignant breast lesions] was visible in the ABUS-coronal reconstruction," she said. Compared with handheld ultrasound, ABUS reduces operator dependence and has a higher reproducibility. And like handheld breast ultrasound, ABUS increases the cancer detection rate when it's used as an adjunct to mammography in women with dense breast tissue, Nikolova noted. But ABUS does have a few limiting factors that are barriers to its use, she explained, including users' fears of missing lesions, due to artifacts (which can lead to false negatives), incorrect interpretation of findings (which can translate to false positives), and higher cost. Nikolova and colleagues investigated the false-positive and false-negative rates for ABUS over three years of using the technology in their ...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Ultrasound Source Type: news