It has taken almost 20 years for the development of the technology of ultrasound-elastography to reach its current level, where it is a modality that plays a vital role in modern breast imaging. The technique is founded on the basic principle that there is a difference in the elasticity of benign and malignant lesions. In the early days of elastography much effort was expended in trying to establish correlations of elasticity measurements with various types of breast tissue. However the use of elastography information to predict malignancy was not reliable enough for example to be able to decide that interventional procedures were unnecessary.
By Dr Volker F. Duda