Vascular Pathology of Malignant Cervical Lymphadenopathy - Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment with Power Doppler Ultrasound

BACKGROUND. Malignant vascular pathology has traditionally been studied with invasive angiography or in vitro immunohistochemistry. The objective of this study was to investigate the vascular patterns and vascular density of benign and malignant cervical lymphadenopathy using power Doppler ultrasound combined with a computed quantitative image processing system. METHODS. Investigations of 189 cervical lymph node lesion were undertaken prospectively using a 5-10 MHz linear array transducer in power mode. The types of vascular patterns displayed with power Doppler ultrasound, after sweep-scanning over the whole lymph node, were classified as hilar, spotted, peripheral, or mixed. quantitative assessment of vascularity was made by sampling three parallel planes of each lymph node. A computed image processing system automatically calculated the density of vascular signals(called the "vascularity index" in this study) within the lymph node plane. RESULTS. Malignant lymph node lesions were shown to have higher vascularity indices( 0.169±0.147, P