New Doppler imaging technique for assessing angiogenesis in breast tumors: correlation with immunohistochemically analyzed microvessels density.

Background: Microvessel density (MVD) is associated with grade and prognosis in breast tumors. However, conventional color Doppler flow (CDF) imaging has been limited to represent MVD of breast tumors.

Purpose: To evaluate whether a new Doppler imaging technique (AngioPLUS) can represent MVD of breast tumors.

Material And Methods: The institutional review board approved this retrospective study, and patients' informed consent was waived. CDF and AngioPLUS were available in pathologically confirmed 55 breast tumors of 53 women. For each lesion, vascular flow patterns (distribution and amount) of both Doppler images were retrospectively reviewed, and MVD was measured using immunohistochemical analysis of the biopsied tissue sections. MVD was subcategorized as low or high group with reference to the median. The associations between the Doppler features and MVD were evaluated using Fisher's exact test and Student's t test.

Results: Of the 55 masses, 28 (50.9%) were benign and 27 (49.1%) were malignant. Vascular flow distribution and amount of both Doppler imaging were different between the benign and malignant lesions (CDF, P = 0.020 and P = 0.010; AngioPLUS, P = 0.002 and P = 0.005). MVD had no significant relationships with CDF features, but vascular flow distribution on AngioPLUS showed significant differences between the lesions with low and high MVD ( P = 0.020); Combined distribution was more frequent in the high MVD lesions than in the low MVD lesions (17/28, 60.7% vs. 6/27, 22.2%).

Conclusion: Our data confirmed the correlation between a new Doppler imaging technique, AngioPLUS, and MVD. We suggest that AngioPLUS can be used for assessing MVD in breast tumors.