Reena Mathur1, Sumitra Choudhary2, Jaya Pamnani3, Divya Bagoria4, Unmila T. N5, Kalpna Manral6, Shashi Meena7, Parma Dubey8
BACKGROUND
Breast diseases are common in females. In developing countries like India, females are unaware of breast pathologies hence
they are detected usually in advanced stages. We have studied 100 patients of palpable breast masses presenting to our
department and evaluate the role of combined mammographic and sonographic imaging in patients with palpable abnormalities
of the breast, which help in decision making by clinician as to lesion go for biopsy or follow up.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was conducted at Department of Radiodiagnosis J. L.N. Medical College & Associated Groups of Hospitals, Ajmer.
We included women equal to or more than 30 years referred to this centre with palpable abnormalities of breast during a
period from March 2015 to August 2016. All these women underwent a combined mammographic and sonographic evaluation
of breast.
RESULTS
50 (50%) of the 100 palpable abnormalities had benign assessment, 30 (60%) of the benign lesions were visible both on
mammography and sonography; 18 (36%) of the 50 benign lesions were mammographically occult and identified at
sonographic evaluation.2 lesion was sonographically occult (4%) and visualized on mammography. In 14 (14%) of the 100
cases, imaging evaluation resulted in a suspicious assessment and all these lesions underwent biopsy and 4 were diagnosed
as having malignancy. 36(36%) of the 100 palpable abnormalities had negative imaging assessment finding: of these 14
patients underwent biopsy and all had benign findings. The sensitivity and negative predictive value for combined
mammographic and sonographic assessment were 100%; the specificity was 78.26%.
CONCLUSION
Combined use of mammography and sonography plays an important role in the management of palpable breast lesions. It
characterizes the palpable mass lesion, avoids unnecessary interventions in which imaging findings are unequivocally benign.
Negative findings on combined mammographic and sonographic imaging have very high specificity and are reassuring to the
patient and prevent unnecessary biopsy.
