Abstract
Ultrasonic echography has been recently highlighted for the clinical diagnosis of malignant neoplasm and other benign tumors because it is a noninvasive method and has no physical hazard as is the case with the radiological technique. It is a useful technique because it will offer considerable diagnostic information on the visualization of soft tissue pathology. Such information was rather difficult to obtain by the radiological method, and especially difficult was the visualization of malignant or benign tumors of soft tissue origin. Currently used techniques for ultrasonic echography are classified as compound contact scanning, arc-scanning through water-immersion, radial scanning (PPI), and recently developed high-speed real time electronic linear or sector scanning. These techniques can be applied to the clinical diagnosis of brain tumors, tumors of the orbit and eye, ENT tumors, thyroid tumors, abdominal tumors including pelvic tumors, breast tumors, urogenital tumors or soft tissue tumors of the extremities. Clinical usefulness of echography by the sensitivity graded method for breast cancer and gray scale image was highly appraised because of its diagnostic accuracy rates: T1 81%, T2 93%, and T3 100% according to the tumor size of TNM classification, and 97%. for scirrhous carcinoma, 87% for medullary carcinoma, and 78% for papillary carcinoma. These rates may be considered to be better than those achieved by mammography. For echographic diagnosls of abdominal tumors, the technique can be used for neoplastic lesions in soft tissue organs such as the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, kidney, uterus, ovary and retroperitoneal space. It is especially useful in determining whether such lesions are cystic or a solid mass, for visualization of the tumor mass in anatomical relation to various intraabdominal organs, the preoperative determination of the tumor size, and it may also offer some important diagnostic information on whether the mass is malignant or benign in some instances. Those diagnostic information can be also obtained for the soft tissue tumors in the extremities. The technique may be a useful clinical auxiliary aid for differential diagnosis of neoplastic lesions, especially cancer detection in various organs. Therefore, this review focused on the viewpoint of cancer and medical ultrasonics, especially the current status of clinical echography in demonstrating the typical echograms of various neoplasms.
