Investigation of Ultrasound Imaging and Spectroscopy for Characterizing Breast Masses

Our objective in this study is to identify an optimal set of quantitative ultrasound parameters that can be used, non-invasively, to characterize breast masses with high accuracy, as determined histopathologically. Breast cancer is the most frequent form of non-epithelial cancer diagnosed in women, with approximately 1.5 million new cases diagnosed annually worldwide. Accurate diagnosis and characterization of disease play an important role in therapy planning for breast cancer treatment. Currently, the gold standard method of tumour diagnosis is pathological examination of core biopsy specimens. However, the invasive core biopsies can cause post-surgical complications. Besides, some lesions require repeat biopsy due to sampling errors during the initial biopsy. Also X-ray mammography and ultrasound B-mode images, which are used by radiologists for breast examination, lack reliable information about micro-structural properties of tissues. There is an urgent need of a non-invasive imaging modality that can provide rapid and quantitative information for breast tumour characterization, in real time and at the patient bed. The main goal, as described above, is to select the best quantitative ultrasound parameters that can facilitate breast cancer characterization, non-invasively.