Diagnosis of Breast Disease

Abstract

Imaging of the female breast with ultrasound was first performed in the early 1950s by Wild and Neal (1951, 1952), but the method did not gain wide acceptance due to the need for specially designed machines that were not available commercially. Only after ultrasound diagnosis became firmly established in other areas were special breast scanners developed, most notably through the efforts of the Japanese groups of Kobayashi (1974) and Wagai et al. (1967) and the Australian groups of Kossoff and Jellins (from 1971 to 1975). The introduction of the gray-scale technique by the same groups, combined with the use of automated water-bath scanners, provided greatly enhanced images of the female breast. It must be emphasized, however, that while instruments have been specially developed for breast examination, their capabilities are not inherently superior to those of good real-time scanners, because they have the same limitations of resolution. Nevertheless, the over view provided by immersion-type scanners is a definite advantage. There is no one breast scanner that is ideal in all situations.