ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the effect of the combined use of ultrasound (US) elastography and color Dop-pler on the differential diagnosis and TNM staging of benign or malignant breast neoplasm. Methods A cohort of 58 biop-sy-proved cases, who underwent US elastographic and Doppler US imaging, were included in the current study. The pathological results after operation were considered the‘gold standard’of diagnosis. ROC curves were used to compare the changing rates of the diameter and area, elastographic indices and Doppler blood flow score in diagnosis of breast cancer. Re-sults Compared with other indices, the area changing rate showed the highest diagnostic ability with the AUC=0.914. More-over, the combined use of the elastography and color Doppler US increased the AUC to 0.981. The elastographic indices for neoplasm in the advanced-stage (stageⅡ~Ⅳ) were high than those of early-stage (stage 0~Ⅰ). The elastographic and Dop-pler scores increased with the progress of the TNM stages. Conclusion The changing rate of elastographic area can be used to accurately diagnose the breast neoplasm. Moreover, the combined use of US elastography and color Doppler US can in-crease the accuracy of the diagnosis, and may also provide useful information for the TNM staging.