AIM: To develop a method combining the statistics of the ultrasound backscatter and the Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) classification to enhance the differentiation of @entity0 . MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Nakagami shape parameter m was used to characterise the scatter properties of @entity0 . Raw data from the radiofrequency (RF) echo-signal and B-mode images from 107 (32 malignant and 75 benign) lesions and their surrounding tissue were recorded. Three different characteristic values of the shape parameters of m (maximum [mLmax], minimum [mLmin] and average [mLavg]) and differences between m parameters (  mmax,   mmin,   mavg) of the lesions and their surrounding tissues were assessed. A lesion with a BI-RADS score of 3 was considered benign, while a lesion with a score of 4 was considered malignant (a cut-off of BI-RADS 3/4 was set for all @entity1 ). RESULTS: The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was equal to 0.966 for BI-RADS, with 100% sensitivity and 54.67% specificity. All malignant lesions were diagnosed correctly, whereas 34 benign lesions were biopsied unnecessarily. In assessing the Nakagami statistics, the sum of the sensitivity and specificity was the best for mLavg (62.5% and 93.33%, respectively). Only four of 20 lesions were found over the cut-off value in BI-RADS of 4a. When comparing the differences in m parameters,   mavg had the highest sensitivity of 90% (only three of 32 lesions were false negative). These three lesions were classified as BI-RADS category 4c. The combined use of B-mode and mLmin parameter improve the AUC up to 0.978 (p=0.088), compared to BI-RADS alone. CONCLUSION: The combination of the parametric imaging and the BI-RADS assessment does not significantly improve the differentiation of @entity1558 , but it has the potential to better identify the group of @entity1 with mainly benign lesions that have a low level of suspicion for @entity5 with a BI-RADS score of 4a.

Usefulness of combined BI-RADS analysis and Nakagami statistics of ultrasound echoes in the diagnosis of XXXX .

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients'] @entity1558 :: ('MESH:D001941', 'Disease') :: ['breast lesions'] @entity5 :: ('MESH:D009369', 'Disease') :: ['malignancy'] @entity0 :: ('MESH:D001943', 'Disease') :: ['breast tumours']
@entity1558 :: (MESH:D001941,Disease) :: ['breast lesions']
