Malignant lesions initially categorized as probably benign breast lesions: retrospective review of ultrasonographic, clinical and pathologic characteristics.
The primary objective of this study was to review the ultrasonographic features of BI-RADS category 3 ("probably benign") lesions that eventually proved to be malignant. A second objective was to investigate their clinical and pathologic features according to their palpability and time of biopsy. Thirty-two (0.8%) of 4000 women with lesions that were initially classified as "probably benign" proved to be malignant and formed the study group. The most common reason for a false negative assessment on ultrasound was a failure to recognize suspicious margin characteristics (28 of 32 malignancies, 87.5%). Malignancy was more frequent in palpable (2.4%, 21 of 859) than nonpalpable lesions (0.4%, 11 of 3141, p < 0.001). There was no statistical difference in the mean age, mean size of lesions, or tumor stage between patients who underwent early biopsy (n = 19) or biopsy after 6 months (n = 13). Twenty-nine of the lesions (90.6%) were retrospectively recategorized as BI-RADS 4, which calls for early biopsy. BI-RADS 3 lesions require especially careful assessment.
Moon
Hee Jung
HJ
Department of Radiology, Research Institute of Radiological Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
Kim
Min Jung
MJ
Kwak
Jin Young
JY
Yoon
Jung Hyun
JH
Kim
Soo Jin
SJ
Sohn
Yu-Mee
YM
Kim
Eun-Kyung
EK
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001706:Biopsy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016217:Ultrasonography, Mammary / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*