Breast Cancer Lymph Node Color Doppler Ultrasound Color Meanings

Several gray scale and color doppler features favor malignancy in a lymph node.

Breast cancer lymph node color doppler ultrasound color meanings.

The analysis of patterns of nodal vascularity can be used to differentiate benign from malignant lymphadenopathy with high sensitivity. A two dimensional color doppler sonography reveals rounded lymph node morphologic characteristics with loss of hilar fat. Thus for some time aln dissection alnd was the standard of care in these patients however screening programs and increased awareness on the disease tend to identify more breast cancer patients at an earlier stage in. Axillary lymph node dissection alnd is the definitive method to diagnose axillary metastasis but sentinel lymph node biopsy slnb has supplanted this procedure as the primary method of evaluating the axilla in most cases of early stage breast cancer because slnb has a significantly lower rate of morbidity than does alnd and a low false.

On color doppler it may show some peripheral vascularity in acute phase and may resemble breast cancer requiring a biopsy to establish tissue diagnosis. The presence of cancer cells is known as lymph node involvement. However the normally directed hilar blood flow arrow which is best seen with manipulation of the images supports the histologic diagnosis of a reactive lymph node. Color doppler ultrasound can show flow in all lymph nodes regardless of whether they are affected by a benign or a malignant process.

Gray scale parameters that favor malignancy size. However fat necrosis usually exhibits no significant blood flow figure 16. As lymph fluid leaves the breast and eventually goes back into the bloodstream the lymph nodes try to catch and trap cancer cells before they reach other parts of the body. B d three dimensional multiplanar reformatted images also show loss of the fatty hilum.

Lymph nodes are small bean shaped organs that act as filters along the lymph fluid channels. In 1998 reports that the use of color doppler sonography on axillary lymph nodes to diagnose the metastatic axillary lymph nodes of breast cancer. Meanwhile research conducted by yang et al. The vascular flow is inadequately evaluated.

To document differences in color doppler flow and gray scale ultrasonographic us features between benign and malignant axillary lymph nodes in women with primary breast cancer.