The clinical value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in superficial lymphadenopathy qualitative diagnosis / 中华超声影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in superficial lymphadenopathy. Methods Ninty-four superficial enlarged lymph nodes were studied by 2-dimensional, color Doppler ultrasound, and contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Then the contrast-enhanced images were analyzed by Philips Q-LAB software. All the results were compared with pathological diagnosis. Results For the 94 superficial lymph nodes examined,44 were benign,33 were metastases and 17 were lymphomas. The sensitivity, specificity,and accuracy of contrast-enhanced images were 84% ,74% and 790//oo respectively. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound examination showed intense homogeneous enhancement in 39 of 44 benign lymph nodes; high or low homogeneous enhancement in 25 of 33 and 7 of 33 in metastases respectively;intense homogeneous, and scarce enhancement in 6 of 17 and 9 of 17 in lymphomas respectively. Time-intensity curves showed that compared with metastasis lymph nodes and lymphomas, benign lymph nodes had higher peak intensity and larger area under the curve (P<0.01). Conclusions The diagnosis accuracy was significant increased when contrast-enhanced ultrasound was test against conventional ultrasound. The character of contrast agent enhancement and Q-LAB time-intensity curves provide valuable diagnosis information for differential diagnosis of benign,metastasis lymph nodes and lymphomas.