Breast ultrasonography in young Asian women: analyses of BI-RADS final assessment category according to symptoms

Abstract

Background Breast ultrasound is the major imaging modality in young women because it incurs no radiation exposure and dense breast tissue, which is common in young women, yields a high rate of false-negative results on mammography. Purpose To investigate the cancer rates of the sonographic BI-RADS categorization and histopathologic results according to the presence of symptoms in young Asian women. Material and Methods We included 811 young women under 30 years of age who underwent a breast ultrasound during the study period. The mean age of all subjects was 24.5 years (range 11–29 years). Histopathologic results were compared with the results after application of the BI-RADS categorization. Results Sonographic findings were classified as category 1 ( n = 192), category 2 ( n = 81), category 3 ( n = 399), category 4 ( n = 134), and category 5 ( n = 5). The cancer rates for category 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 were 0, 0, 0.3, 6.3, and 100% in the symptomatic group, respectively. For the asymptomatic group, the cancer rates were 0, 0, 0, 8.7, and 100%, respectively. More cancers were found in high-risk women (22.2%, 4/18) than in non-high-risk women (1.4%, 11/793). Conclusion BI-RADS categorization was helpful for predicting the probability of malignancy in young Asian women.