Sonography and sonoelastography in the detection of malignancy in superficial lymph nodes of dogs

Abstract

Background: The clinical applicability of sonography and sonoelastography (SOE) in the detection of lymph node malignancy in dogs has not been established. Objectives: To compare sonographic and sonoelastographic findings between malignant and benign superficial lymph nodes and to evaluate the diagnostic performance of those methods. Animals: One-hundred sixteen lymph nodes of 54 dogs. Methods: A prospective observational study was used to investigate sonographic features and elasticity scores of malignant and benign superficial lymph nodes. Lymph nodes were categorized as malignant or benign according to cytology or histopathology. Quantitative variables were compared using Student's unpaired t test. Prevalence of categorical variables was compared using nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test. Diagnostic performance was calculated by receiver-operating characteristic analysis. Results: Forty-nine malignant and 67 benign lymph nodes were included. Malignant nodes had larger long axis (LA; P =.0002), short axis (SA; P