High-res ultrasound with elastography beats specimen mammography

Wednesday, December 1 | 11:50 a.m.-12:00 p.m. | SSK01-09 | Room E450A

Examining excised breast tissue with high-resolution ultrasound elastography could help surgeons confirm tumor-free margins with greater accuracy than specimen mammography, according to this Wednesday morning presentation by German researchers.

Presenter Reinhard Kubale, MD, PhD, will discuss how his team used high-resolution ultrasound and specimen mammography to examine specimens resected from 55 patients with biopsy-confirmed tumors. High-resolution ultrasound was performed during operations using a 17- and 18-MHz scan head with Hannafy lens (Acuson S2000, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany).

Re-excision was performed for patients with close (< 5 mm) or positive margins, and tumor-free distance was compared to histology.

Kubale and colleagues found good visibility of tumors and margins in 51 of 55 cases. There was an 89% correlation between histological and high-resolution ultrasound measurements of tumor-free margin. Re-excision was performed in 31 cases, with intraoperative re-excision correct in 26 of 31 cases.

High-resolution ultrasound was superior to specimen mammography in detecting resected tumor and tumor-free border, and it reduced the reoperation rate from 12% to 5%, the authors concluded.