Efficacy of Ultrasonography in Breast Cancer Screening

Received February 11, 2019 Revised April 30, 2019 Accepted May 2, 2019 A good screening test should be widely available, inexpensive, and have high sensitivity and specificity. Mammography is the only screening modality proven to reduce the mortality of breast cancer. On the other hand, with the increasing awareness of mammography limitations, particularly in a dense breast, supplemental screening for breast cancer with other imaging modalities has been expanding. Breast ultrasonography has the advantage of detecting mammographically occult breast cancers in a dense breast. On the other hand, operator dependence, false positive rates, and rising costs due to increased biopsy rates are a problem. Thus far, the guidelines for the implementation of screening breast ultrasonography have not been established. Physicians should be able to understand the efficacy of breast ultrasonography as the screening modality for breast cancer and perform risk-based screening approaches for individual women. This paper reviews the efficacy, limitations and implementation of screening breast ultrasonography for breast cancer.