ArticleQuantitative imaging in medicine and surgery2022
The value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound enhancement patterns for the diagnosis of sentinel lymph node status in breast cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis.
Article in Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound for sentinel lymph node metastasis in breast cancer: an updated meta-analysis.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2023Pooled it
- A Dual-Modality Ultrasound Video Recognition Model for Distinguishing Subpleural Pulmonary Nodules.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2025Article
- The value of percutaneous contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the detection and diagnosis of sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer: comparison with pathological features.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2025Article
- Cytoplasmic and nuclear programmed death ligand 1 expression in peritumoral stromal cells in breast cancer: Prognostic and predictive value.World journal of experimental medicine · 2025Article
- Artificial intelligence can extract important features for diagnosing axillary lymph node metastasis in early breast cancer using contrast-enhanced ultrasonography.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- New progress in imaging diagnosis and immunotherapy of breast cancer.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- The value of the improved percutaneous and intravenous contrast-enhanced ultrasound diagnostic classification in sentinel lymph nodes of breast cancer.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2024Article
- Diagnosing sentinel lymph node metastasis of T1/T2 breast cancer with conventional ultrasound combined with double contrast-enhanced ultrasound: a preliminary study.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2023Article
- Contrast-enhanced lymphatic US can improve the preoperative diagnostic performance for sentinel lymph nodes in early breast cancer.European radiology · 2023Article
- Ultrasound contrast-enhanced patterns of sentinel lymph nodes: predictive value for nodal status and metastatic burden in early breast cancer.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2023Article
- An optimised search strategy is necessary to ensure a thorough search of the literature.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe sentinel lymph node (SLN) can represent the metastasis status of axillary lymph nodes and is a prognostic factor of breast cancer. Preoperative imaging provides information for axillary surgery decision-making, and this meta-analysis evaluated the diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) for SLN status in breast cancer patients.
methodsThe PubMed, Embase, Medline, Google Scholar, Clinical Trails gov. and Cochrane Library databases were searched from inception until 31 March 2020. Two review authors independently screened and selected the relevant studies and extracted data, and the assessment of the methodological quality of studies was according to the QUADAS-2 tool. The diagnostic value of CEUS was assessed by calculating the pooled sensitivity, specificity, area under the curve, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio, and a summary receiver operating characteristic curve and hierarchical modeling method was used to conduct the meta-analysis.
resultsFive studies with 771 breast cancer patients were included, and the results showed CEUS could provide additional information for SLN preoperative diagnosis. A homogeneous or uniform enhancement pattern suggested a benign lymph node, and a heterogeneous, no pattern, or weak enhancement pattern suggested a node was malignant, demonstrating high sensitivity of 0.960 (95% CI: 0.856, 0.989) and moderate specificity of 0.807 (0.581, 0.926). The pooled positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio were 4.987 (2.104, 11.822) and 0.049 (0.014, 0.168), and 101.294 (31.202, 328.837), respectively.
conclusionsA homogeneous enhancement pattern was highly suggestive of benign lymph nodes with high sensitivity. CEUS could effectively identify the SLN, and facilitate the diagnosis of its metastatic status. REGISTRATION NUMBER: PROSPERO protocol CRD42020176828.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.