Clinical Study Evaluation of Virtual Touch Tissue Imaging Quantification, a New Shear Wave Velocity Imaging Method, for Breast Lesion Assessment by Ultrasound

Copyright © 2014 Michael Golatta et al.This is an open access article distributed under theCreative CommonsAttribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objectives. To evaluate virtual touch tissue imaging quantification (VTIQ) as a new elastography method concerning its intra- and interexaminer reliability and its ability to differentiate benign from malignant breast lesions in comparison to and in combination with ultrasound (US) B-mode breast imaging reporting and data system (BI-RADS) assessment. Materials and Methods. US and VTIQ were performed by two examiners in 103 women with 104 lesions. Intra- and interexaminer reliability of VTIQ was assessed. The area under the receiver operating curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of BIRADS,VTIQ, and combined datawere compared.Results. Fifty-four of 104 lesionsweremalignant. Intraexaminer reliability was consistent, and interexaminer agreement showed a strong positive correlation