Characterization of breast lesions: comparison of digital breast tomosynthesis and ultrasonography.
OBJECTIVE
To compare the diagnostic performance of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) and conventional breast ultrasound (US) to characterize breast lesions as benign or malignant.


METHODS
A total of 332 women, presenting for screening examinations or for breast biopsy between March and June 2012 were recruited to undergo digital mammography (DM), DBT, and breast US examination. Among them, 113 patients with 119 breast lesions depicted on DM were finally included. Three blinded radiologists performed an enriched reader study and reviewed the DBT and US images. Each reader analyzed the lesions in random order, assigned Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) descriptors, rated the images for the likelihood of malignancy (%) and made a BI-RADS final assessment. Diagnostic accuracy, as assessed by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, sensitivity, and specificity of DBT and US were compared.


RESULTS
Among the 119 breast lesions depicted on DM, 75 were malignant and the remaining 44 were benign. The average diagnostic performance for characterizing breast lesions as benign or malignant in terms of area under the curve was 0.899 for DBT and 0.914 for US (p = 0.394). Mean sensitivity (97.3% vs. 98.7%, p = 0.508) and specificity (44.7% vs. 39.4%, p = 0.360) were also not significantly different.


CONCLUSIONS
Digital breast tomosynthesis may provide similar reader lesion characterization performance to that of US for breast lesions depicted on DM.
Department of Radiology, Human Medical Imaging & Intervention Center, Seoul 135-120, Korea.
Sun Ah
SA
Kim
Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul 110-744, Korea.
Jung Min
JM
Chang
Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul 110-744, Korea.
Nariya
N
Cho
Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital Healthcare System Gangnam Center, Seoul 135-984, Korea.
Ann
A
Yi
Department of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul 110-744, Korea.
Woo Kyung
WK
Moon
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001706:Biopsy; D001940:Breast / Q000473:pathology*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012372:ROC Curve; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016217:Ultrasonography, Mammary / Q000379:methods*
Breast US; Diagnostic performance; Digital breast tomosynthesis