Ultrasound elasticity measures tissue stiffness for more accurate breast imaging

Elasticity is an ultrasound technique that provides additional information about the stiffness of breast lesions for a more accurate diagnosis. The ACUSON S2000™ ultrasound system from Siemens Healthcare features eSie Touch™ elasticity imaging to enable this emerging technique. Although mammograms are the standard diagnostic tool for breast scans, ultrasound can be beneficial to patients that need regular examinations or have denser breast tissue such as younger women and patients on HRT.

Like a manual self-exam but more sensitive, eSie Touch elasticity imaging generates an elastogram that gauges how much tissue moves when pushed, so that it can detect how soft or stiff an object is. More detailed information from ultrasound means that some patients are not only spared an uncomfortable, invasive procedure such as needle biopsies, but are also provided with results on a much shorter timescale.

Dr. William Svensson, Consultant Radiologist and Reader in Breast Imaging at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, has undertaken extensive research into elastography for breast cancer diagnosis and trialled the ACUSON S2000 from Siemens. He states, “Elasticity is an ultrasound modality that detects subtle tissue stiffening. Whilst it is a relatively new technique, increasing skill in interpreting its results has the potential for increasing the accuracy of diagnosis. It certainly has the potential in the long term to reduce the number of biopsies carried out by detecting benign lesions with greater accuracy.”

source: Siemens Medical