The value of palpation imaging in the diagnosis of breast diseases        WU Jia-yi*, CHEN Wei-guo, MEI Zhang-yi, et al. *Comprehensive Breast Health Center, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200025, China
Correspondent author: CHEN Wei-guo, E-mail: cwg-dr@hotmail.com
Abstract    Objective To assess the value of palpation imaging(PI) in the diagnosis of breast diseases. Methods    From October 2010 to March 2011, 151 patients with 213 breast lesions, of which 54 were breast cancers and 159 were benign lesions, were examined by PI, ultrasound, mammography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in Comprehensive Breast Health Center, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC ) curve was drawn to determine the cutoff value of the PI test. The diagnostic value of the four examinations were compared. Results The AUC value of the ROC curve was 0.832(95%CI: 0.766～0.898, P<0.001) in the diagnostic tests of PI. The sensitivity of PI was 87.0%, which is higher than that of mammograghy (63.5%, P=0.005) significantly and not statistically different compared with ultrasound (87.0%) or MRI(94.0%). The specificity and acuracy of PI (69.8%, 74.2%) was similar to that of mammography (80.5%, P=0.041, α’=0.0083; 75.4%, P=0.778), but lower than that of ultrasound (86.2%, P<0.001; 86.4%, P=0.002) and MRI (85.7%, P=0.005; 88.7%, P<0.001) significantly. Conclusion    PI is capable of differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions, and may become an important supplement of ultrasound, mammography and MRI in the diagnosis of breast diseases.