Current Status of Ultrasound Mammography

Abstract

The value of ultrasound as an adjunct to mammography is beginning to be recognized. Although most of the initial studies on breast sonography were carried out by Wildand Reid [11, 12] during the early 1950s, it is essentially only during the past few years that its efficacy as a tool for breast diagnosis has been seriously considered by many physicians. Sonography of the breast can be performed either with a hand-held, high-resolution contact transducer or with whole-breast waterbath units capable of displaying the entire breast in multiple thin sections. One of the advantages of hand-held real-time sonography is the fact that many of the users of ultrasound — gynecologists and radiologists — are prepared to extend their existing equipment with a high-resolution contact transducer for ultrasound mammography. In accordance with the recommendation on the application of ultrasound mammography adopted by a joint commission of the German Society of Senology and the German Society for Ultrasound in Medicine in 1983, a real-time linear array should have an operating frequency of at least 5 MHz with a minimal width and depth of the visual area of 5 cm and electronically induced focusing over a depth of 0.5–5 cm with direct skin contact of the ultrasound probe.