Objective: The aim of the study was to quantitatively analyze the enhancement of breast lesions by contrast-enhanced spectral mammography to improve the differential diagnosis ability of contrast-enhanced spectral mammography.
Methods: A total of 283 patients with breast lesions admitted from August 2017 to May 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. Quantitative analysis of all enhancing lesions was performed to measure the gray values of the lesion region of interest (ROI), the area close to the lesion (ROI1), the area close to the chest wall (ROI2), and the chest wall (ROI3). Differences in gray values between different ROIs of benign and malignant lesions were compared. Taking the pathological results as the criterion standard, we used the receiver operating characteristic curve to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the ROI gray value and relative gray value (rROI) for the lesions.
Results: A total of 299 lesions were found in 283 patients, including 101 benign lesions and 198 malignant lesions. The ROI gray value, rROI1, rROI2, and rROI3 of malignant lesions were all significantly greater than those of benign lesions. The areas under the ROC curve of ROI, rROI1, rROI2, and rROI3 gray values of benign and malignant lesions were 0.795, 0.833, 0.812, and 0.741, respectively. The statistically significant difference in the area under the ROC curve was only found between rROI1 and ROI gray value and rROI1 had the greatest diagnostic value.
Conclusions: The gray value of malignant breast lesions was higher than that of benign lesions. The quantitative analysis of the gray value will help in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast lesions.