Background Radial breast ultrasound scanning (r-US) and commonly used meander-like ultrasound scanning (m-US) have recently been shown to be equally sensitive and specific with regard to the detection of breast malignancies. As patient satisfaction has a strong influence on patient compliance and thus on the quality of health care, we compare here the two US scanning techniques with regard to patient comfort during breast ultrasound (BUS) and analyze whether the patient has a preference for either scanning technique.

Materials and Methods Symptomatic and asymptomatic women underwent both m-US and r-US scanning by two different examiners. Patient comfort and preference were assessed using a visual analog scale-based (VAS) questionnaire and were compared using a Mann-Whitney U test.

Results Analysis of 422 VAS-based questionnaires showed that perceived comfort with r-US (r-VAS 8 cm, IQR [5.3, 9.1]) was significantly higher compared to m-US (m-VAS 5.6 cm, IQR [5.2, 7.4]) (p < 0.001). 53.8% of patients had no preference, 44.3% of patients clearly preferred r-US, whereas only 1.9% of patients preferred m-US. Conclusion: Patients experience a higher level of comfort with r-US and favor r-US over m-US. As the diagnostic accuracy of r-US has been shown to be comparable to that of m-US and the time required for examination is shorter, a switch from m-US to r-US in routine clinical practice might be beneficial. R-US offers considerable potential to positively affect patient compliance but also to save examination time and thus costs.

Received: 11 April 2023

Accepted after revision: 06 March 2024

Article published online:
22 April 2024

© 2024. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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Bibliographical Record
Pascale Brasier-Lutz, Claudia Jäggi-Wickes, Sabine Schädelin, Rosemarie Burian, Cora-Ann Schoenenberger, Rosanna Zanetti-Dällenbach. Patient perception of meander-like versus radial breast ultrasound. Ultrasound Int Open 2024; 10: a22829193.
DOI: 10.1055/a-2282-9193