1. *, Sarah Vinnicombe. 1,2. , Kim Thomson. 2. , Andrew Evans. 1,2 . 1. University of Dundee, Dundee, UK;. 2. Ninewells Hospital & Medical School, Dundee, UK.
Shearwave elastography stiffness correlates with fibro-glandular composition of breast tissue 1 Skerl *,
1,2 Vinnicombe ,
2 Thomson ,
1,2 Evans .
Katrin Sarah Kim Andrew 1University of Dundee, Dundee, UK; 2Ninewells Hospital & Medical School, Dundee, UK Introduction Breast density measures the ratio between glandular and fatty tissue within the breast (Fig. 1), i.e. low breast density (BI-RADS A) describes fatty breasts. Aside from age, breast density is one of the strongest risk factors for the development of breast cancer in a population [1]. Usually mammograms are evaluated to assess breast density. However, this procedure is undesirable for younger women and an alternative method avoiding radiation, such as ultrasound, is preferred. Hence, our study aims to investigate the correlation between breast density assessment and Shear Wave Elastography (SWE) measurements. Figure 1: Breast anatomy [2]
kPa
Emax 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
29
Emean 30
32
24
A
B C BI-RADS
14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
12
13
13
6.0 4.6
5.0
10
4.0
4.6
5.2
3.9
3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0 A
D
SD
B C BI-RADS
D
A
B C BI-RADS
D
Figure 3: Elasticity values averaged for each BI-RADS category A vs B
