Rationale and Objectives
The new version of the Contrast Enhanced Mammography (CEM) Breast imaging Reporting
and Data System (BIRADs) encourages investigations of a new enhancement descriptor:
“Lesion Conspicuity” (LC). The study aims to assess the diagnostic performance and
the relationship with the receptor profile of this new enhancement descriptor.
Materials and Methods
Three hundred twenty-five patients with 381 breast lesions who underwent CEM before
histological assessmentwere selected. Four radiologists, blinded to each other, categorized
LC into the following levels: absent, low, moderate, and high. Considering moderate
and high evaluations as predictive of malignancy, the diagnostic performance of CEM
was calculated using histological results of the biopsy as the gold standard. The
association between LC values and the receptor profile of the neoplasms was also evaluated.
Results
The median age at the CEM examination was 50 years (IQR: 45-59). Considering the value
of LC of the most experienced radiologist with the interpretation of Low Energy images
(LE), we obtained a sensitivity (SE) of 91.9% (95% CI: 88.6%-95.2%) and a specificity
(SP) of 67.2% (95% CI: 58.9%-75.5%). An association between “high” lesion conspicuity
with ER/PgR not expressed (p = 0.025), with Ki-67>20% (p = 0.033), and with Grading G3 (p = 0.020) was observed.
Conclusion
The new feature of enhancement, “Lesion Conspicuity”, demonstrated satisfactory performance
in predicting the malignancy of lesions and significant correlation with the receptor
profile of malignant breast neoplasms.
Key Words
Abbreviations:
CEM (Contrast Enhanced Mammography), BIRADS (Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System), LC (Lesion Conspicuity), LE (Low Energy), ACR (American College of Radiology), ER (estrogen receptor), PR (Progesterone)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 08, 2023
Accepted:
February 7,
2023
Received in revised form:
January 30,
2023
Received:
January 6,
2023
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
