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Purpose: To show the results of an audit of screening breast ultrasound (US) in women with negative mammography in a single institution and to analyze US-detected cancers within a year and interval cancers. Materials and Methods: During the year of 2006, 1974 women with negative mammography were screened with US in our screening center, and 1727 among them had pathologic results or any follow up breast examinations more than a year. We analyzed the distribution of Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) category and the performance outcome through follow up. Results: Among 1727 women (age, 30-76 years, median 49.5 years), 1349 women (78.1%) showed dense breasts on mammography, 762 (44.1%) had previous breast US, and 25 women (1.4%) had a personal history of breast cancers. Test negatives were 94.2% (1.627/1727) [BI-RADS category 1 in 885 (51.2%), 2 in 742 (43.0%)]. The recall rate (=BI-RADS category 3, 4, 5) was 5.8%. Eight cancers were additionally detected with US (yield, 4.6 per 1000). The sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value (PPV1, PPV2) were 88.9%, 94.6%, 8.0%, and 28.0%, respectively. Eight of nine true positive cancers were stage I or in-situ cancers. One interval cancer was stage I cancer from BI-RADS category 2. Conclusion: Screening US detected 4.6 additional cancers among 1000. The recall rate was 5.8%, which is in lower bound of acceptable range of mammography (5-12%), according to American College of Radiology standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We investigated the merit of ultrasound (US) features and BRAFV600E mutation as an additional study of cytology and compared the diagnostic performances of cytology alone, cytology with US correlation, cytology with BRAFV600E mutation, and a combination of cytology, US, and BRAFV600E mutation all together. Materials and Methods: This study included 185 patients (mean age, 48.4 years; range 20--77 years) with 191 thyroid nodules who underwent US-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) with an additional BRAFV600E mutation test. Three radiologists highly experienced in thyroid imaging retrospectively reviewed US images and classified each nodule into two categories (positive for malignancy or negative for malignancy). Interobserver variability (IOV) of US assessment between the three readers was estimated using the generalized kappa statistic of Landis and Koch. We also calculated the diagnostic performances of these studies. Results: There were 131 cases of malignancy (131/191,68.6%) and 60 cases of benign nodules (60/191, 31.4%). In terms of IOV of US assessment, the generalized kappa value was 0.242, indicating fair agreement was reached. The combination of cytology with BRAFV600E showed higher specificity (100%) and positive predictive value (PPV) (100%) compared to the combination of cytology, BRAFV600E, and US (specificity 28.3%, 66.7%, 68.3%; PPV 74.6%, 86.6%, 86.8%, respectively; p<0.001). However, cytology with BRAFV600E showed lower sensitivity (84.7%) than cytology with BRAFV600E and US (96.2%, 98.5%, 95.4%, respectively; p<0.001). Conclusion: Considering the diagnostic performance and low reproducibility of US, the combination of FNA with BRAFV600E is the most reliable and objective method for diagnosing thyroid malignancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]