Abstract:Objective To explore the value of ultrasound elastography combined with conventional ultrasound in the diagnosis of early breast cancer. Methods Totally 95 cases with 104 breast solid nodules diagnosed by breast ultrasound examination were involved. All cases were examined by common ultrasound and shear wave elastography (SWE). The pathology was taken as gold standard to analyze the value of two-dimensional ultrasonography, elastography and three-dimensional ultrasound in the diagnosis of early stage breast cancer. Results Among the 104 lesions, 38 were benign lesions, accounting for 36.54%, and 66 were malignant lesions, accounting for 63.46%. The proportion of benign lesions with regular lesion shape, clear lesion boundary, no internal echo, aspect ratio < 1, blood flow grading < 0.7 and resistance index < 0.7 were significantly more than those of malignant lesions by Chisquare test, and the proportion of posterior echo attenuation was significantly less than that of malignant lesions. The difference was significant (P < 0.05). The above indexes in benign lesion group were higher than those in malignant lesion group, and the posterior echo and attenuation were less than those in malignant lesion group (P < 0.05). The sensitivity of two-dimensional ultrasound, two-dimensional SWE, three-dimensional ultrasound and three-dimensional SWE in diagnosis of malignant lesions were 0.773, 0.970, 0.803 and 0.909, the specificity was 0.737, 0.895, 0.921, 0.737, and the accuracy rate were 0.760, 0.942, 0.846, 0.846. The sensitivity of combined diagnosis is higher than that of single detection, but the specificity is lower than that of single detection. Conclusion Two-dimensional ultrasound and three-dimensional ultrasound can provide many evidences for the early diagnosis of breast cancer, but the diagnosis efficiency are both relatively poor. Two-dimensional SWE has better performance in the diagnosis of early stage breast cancer. Parallel detection can improve the diagnostic sensitivity.