Comparison of Automated Breast Volume Scanning and Hand-Held Ultrasound in the Detection of Breast Cancer: an Analysis of 5,566 Patient Evaluations

Background: The purpose of this study was to compare the accuracy and effectiveness of automated breastvolume scanning (ABVS) and hand-held ultrasound (HHUS) in the detection of breast cancer in a large populationgroup with a long-term follow-up, and to investigate whether different ultrasound systems may influence theestimation of cancer detection. Materials and
Methods: Institutional review board approval was obtained forthis retrospective study, and informed consent was waived. From September 2010 to August 2011, a total of1,866 ABVS and 3,700 HHUS participants, who underwent these procedures at our institute, were includedin this study. Cancers occurring during the study and subsequent follow-up were evaluated. The referencestandard was a combination of histology and follow-up imaging (≥12 months). The recall rate, cancer detectionyield, diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values werecalculated with exact 95% confidence intervals.
Results: The recall rate was 2.57 per 1,000 (48/1,866) for ABVSand 3.57 per 1,000 (132/3,700) for HHUS, with а significant difference (p=0.048). The cancer detection yieldwas 3.8 per 1,000 for ABVS and 2.7 per 1,000 for HHUS. The diagnostic accuracy was 97.7% for ABVS and96.5% for HHUS with statistical significance (p=0.018). The specificity of ABVS and HHUS were 97.8%, 96.7%,respectively (p=0.022).
Conclusions: ABVS shows a comparable diagnostic performance to HHUS. ABVS is aneffective supplemental tool for mammography in breast cancer detection in a large population.