Dear AuntMinnie.com Member,
Practitioners of breast ultrasound may be able to achieve sensitivity rates of 98% by adhering to strict criteria when evaluating suspicious lesions. The news comes from breast ultrasound expert Dr. A. Thomas Stavros, who describes how he does it in an article we’re featuring this week in our Women’s Imaging Digital Community.
Stavros, chief of ultrasound at Radiology Imaging Associates in Greenwood Village, CO, spoke on the topic at the recent National Consortium of Breast Centers meeting in Las Vegas. Contributing writer Deborah R. Dakins was there to report on his presentation for AuntMinnie.com.
Stavros uses a detailed algorithm to evaluate suspicious lesions, one that is based on the unique morphological characteristics that differentiate benign from malignant lesions. There are nine specific features that characterize malignant lesions; if a suspicious lesion has none of these markers, then it is assessed for any of five benign features.
If no suspicious characteristics are present but at least one of the benign features are, then chances are less than 2% that the lesion is malignant. For these patients, Stavros recommends a six-month follow-up.
In addition to his evaluation algorithm, Stavros has developed a methodology for classifying lesions with ultrasound that is based on the American College of Radiology’s widely used BI-RADS lexicon. Learn all about it in the Women’s Imaging Digital Community, at women.auntminnie.com.
