Multi-parametric Breast Ultrasound Imaging as a Potential Biomarker for Breast Cancer

Patients with a palpable lump in the breast or suspicious findings in X-ray mammography typically undergo breast ultrasound examination as a supplemental imaging modality. Findings are then used for tumour classification according the American Collage of Radiology (ACR) Breast Imaging Reporting and Database System (BI-RADS) lexicon. Suspicious findings then undergo ultrasound-guided biopsy, which causes discomfort for the patient and introduces high emotional stress, and may involve - albeit very-small - risk of complications (such as bleeding and infections).

Today conventional breast ultrasound B-mode images do not have the specificity to reliably differentiate malignant and benign tissues in all cases and hence a biopsy intervention or close follow-up is necessitated. Multiparametric imaging bio-markers such as the novel method of speed-of-sound imaging may provide additional indicators to help to better classify lesions prior to biopsy and avoid any further work-up.

The study collects data with an ultrasound device during normal BUS examination which is then retrospectively processed to extract the desired multi-parametric BUS (mp-BUS) information of imaged tissue.