Missed Breast Cancers On Sonography: Reasons and Solutions

Brief Description of the Purpose of the ReportRecently, breast sonography has widely been used as a modality for evaluating mammographically detected abnormalities, palpable abnormalities, or for screening of women with dense breast tissue. However, the diagnostic usefulness of this modality for the breast depends on many variables, such as the nature or location of the lesion, performer’s experience as well as sonography system and technique. In this article, we discuss and illustrate the reasons that can lead to missed breast cancers on sonography, and provide guidelines to help reduce them.Medical HistoryFrom our database of sonography during the past 9 years, we reviewed the cancers that had been missed on sonography. Possible causes for missed breast cancers included errors from sonography system and technique, perception errors such as poor- or non-visualization or subtle imaging features of lesions, and interpretation errors such as benign looking morphology or slow growth of a lesion.DiagnosisMissed breast cancers including invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, mucinous carcinoma, and ductal carcinoma in situ.Discussion and Summary of the CaseAwareness of the causes that can lead to missed breast cancers is helpful to reduce them. Brief Description of the Purpose of the ReportRecently, breast sonography has widely been used as a modality for evaluating mammographically detected abnormalities, palpable abnormalities, or for screening of women with dense breast tissue. However, the diagnostic usefulness of this modality for the breast depends on many variables, such as the nature or location of the lesion, performer’s experience as well as sonography system and technique. In this article, we discuss and illustrate the reasons that can lead to missed breast cancers on sonography, and provide guidelines to help reduce them. Recently, breast sonography has widely been used as a modality for evaluating mammographically detected abnormalities, palpable abnormalities, or for screening of women with dense breast tissue. However, the diagnostic usefulness of this modality for the breast depends on many variables, such as the nature or location of the lesion, performer’s experience as well as sonography system and technique. In this article, we discuss and illustrate the reasons that can lead to missed breast cancers on sonography, and provide guidelines to help reduce them. Medical HistoryFrom our database of sonography during the past 9 years, we reviewed the cancers that had been missed on sonography. Possible causes for missed breast cancers included errors from sonography system and technique, perception errors such as poor- or non-visualization or subtle imaging features of lesions, and interpretation errors such as benign looking morphology or slow growth of a lesion. From our database of sonography during the past 9 years, we reviewed the cancers that had been missed on sonography. Possible causes for missed breast cancers included errors from sonography system and technique, perception errors such as poor- or non-visualization or subtle imaging features of lesions, and interpretation errors such as benign looking morphology or slow growth of a lesion. DiagnosisMissed breast cancers including invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, mucinous carcinoma, and ductal carcinoma in situ. Missed breast cancers including invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, mucinous carcinoma, and ductal carcinoma in situ. Discussion and Summary of the CaseAwareness of the causes that can lead to missed breast cancers is helpful to reduce them. Awareness of the causes that can lead to missed breast cancers is helpful to reduce them.