ObjectiveTo analyze the vascular characteristics in benign and malignant breast nodules using superb microvascular imaging (SMI), and judge the application prospect and value of this technology.

MethodsA total of 75 patients with breast cancer were selected, among them, 45 patients were diagnosed as benign breast tumors, 30 patients with malignant breast cancer.A total of 94 effective lesions and nodules were obtained, there were 45 nodules in benign group, 49 nodules in malignant group.Four pathological vascular characteristics were observed through SMI, including the direction of blood vessels, the angle between main vessels and branches, perforator vessel and vessel number.Taking pathological results as the gold standard, according to the different manifestations of vascular characteristics in benign and malignant breast nodules, ROC curve was used to analyze the cut-off value of SMI technology to identify the internal vascular characteristics of malignant breast nodules, and its sensitivity and specificity were further analyzed.

ResultsFrom the perspective of SMI technology, there was significant difference in direction of blood vessels, angle between main blood stream and branch, and perforator vessel number(P < 0.01), however, there was no significant difference in the vascular abundance between the two groups(P>0.05).The area under the ROC curve of SMI in the diagnosis of breast malignant nodules was 0.879, the related indicators were also obtained, including sensitivity (91.84%), specificity(75.56%), accuracy(67.39%), positive predictive value (80.4%), and negative predictive value (89.5%).

ConclusionsSMI can well reflect the difference of internal vascular characteristics between benign and malignant breast nodules, and has a good diagnostic value for malignant breast lesions.