J Korean Soc Med Ultrasound.  2000 Dec;19(4):319-323.

Power Doppler Ultrasound of Breast Cancer: Correlation with Histologic Microvessel Density and Lymph Node Metastasis

• Kim EK
• Lee YH
• Son HJ
• Oh KK
• Chung HC
• Lee KS

Abstract

PURPOSE
To evaluate how breast cancer vascularity detected by power Doppler sonography correlates with mi-crovessel density(MVD) and lymph node involvement.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Power Doppler US was performed on 47 patients with pathologically diagnosed invasive ductal carcinoma. According to the presense or absence of vessels, power Doppler findings were categorized re-garding total tumors and tumors less than 2cm. MVD was assessed immunohistochemically using polyclonal antisera against factor VIII. Tumor vascularity was correlated with MVD and lymph node involvement.
RESULTS
Among 47 infiltrating ductal carcinomas, 35(74.5%) cases were vascular and 12(25.5%) cases were avascular on power Doppler US. The mean MVD of the vascular and avascular carcinomas did not show any statistical difference. However, lymph mode involvement showed significant statistical difference between the two groups (51.4% versus 25.0%, p=0.036), even though in cancers less than 2cm (40% versus 22.2%, p=0.047).
CONCLUSION
Breast cancer vascularity detected by power Doppler sonography was not correlated with MVD but correlated with lymph node involvement. So we suggest that power Doppler sonography may be useful for pre-dicting lymph node metastasis.

MeSH Terms

Breast Neoplasms*
Breast*
Carcinoma, Ductal
Factor VIII
Humans
Immune Sera
Lymph Nodes*
Microvessels*
Neoplasm Metastasis*
Ultrasonography*
Factor VIII
Immune Sera