Diagnostic value of strain elastography for differentiating benign and malignant soft tissue masses

Li,Shilin; Liu,Lingfang; Lv,Guorong

doi:10.3892/ol.2017.6385

Diagnostic value of strain elastography for differentiating benign and malignant soft tissue masses

Authors:
- Shilin Li
- Lingfang Liu
- Guorong Lv
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Affiliations: Department of Ultrasound, Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou, Fujian 362000, P.R. China, Department of Clinical Medicine, Quanzhou Medical College, Quanzhou, Fujian 362000, P.R. China
Published online on: June 15, 2017 https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2017.6385
Pages: 2041-2044
Copyright: © Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Abstract

The aim of the current study was to investigate the importance of strain elastography (SE) in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant soft tissue masses. SE was adopted to examine 61 patients with superficial masses, classify their elastic scores and assess their strain ratios (SRs) between the masses and the surrounding structures. Significantly increased SR values and elastic scores were observed in the malignant masses compared with the benign masses (5.42±3.47 vs. 1.80±2.10, P<0.001; 3.13±0.34 vs. 2.03±0.99, P<0.001). Area under receiver operating characteristic curve values of the SRs and elastic scores were 0.87 (P<0.001) and 0.805 (P=0.001), respectively. With an SR of >2.295 as the optimal threshold value, the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values for diagnosing a malignant mass were 93.8, 80.5, 65.2 and 97.1%, respectively; whilst using an elastic score of ≥3 as the optimal threshold value, the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values for diagnosing a malignant mass were 100, 51.6, 51.6 and 100%, respectively. SR values and elastic scores were significantly different between the malignant and benign soft tissue masses. Therefore, SE may be used to effectively differentiate between malignant and benign soft tissue masses.

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