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The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSM) researchers says high-frequency ultrasound with elastography can help to successfully differentiate between benign and malignant lesions.

According to background information provided by the study's authors, elastography, a noninvasive procedure, has been shown to distinguish between benign and malignant lesion by measuring their elasticity or stiffness. Therefore, since malignancies are stiffer than benign growths, the team noted that the technique had potential to work as an accurate tool for diagnosing skin cancers.

The study, led by Eliot Siegel, MD, vice chairman of the Department of Radiology at UMSM, used an ultra high-frequency ultrasound system to image 40 patients with a variety of malignant and benign skin lesions. The ratio of elasticity between normal skin and the adjacent skin lesion was calculated.

Cystic lesions, which are not malignant, demonstrated high levels of elasticity, while malignant lesions were significantly less elastic. The elasticity ratio of normal skin to the various skin lesion ranged from 0.04-0.30 for cystic skin lesions to above 10.0.

“The visualized portion of a skin lesion can be just the tip of the iceberg, and most dermatologists operate ‘blindly' beyond what they can see on the surface,” Dr Siegel stated. “High-frequency ultrasound provides almost microscopic resolution and enables us to get size, shape, and extent of the lesion prior to biopsy.”

Furthermore, high-frequency ultrasound with elastography allowed for accurate characterization of the extent and depth of the lesion below the surface, factors which the authors said can aid physicians in treatment.

Source: AJHO

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