Congratulations to Alycen Wiacek! Her first-author journal paper entitled Coherence-based beamforming increases the diagnostic certainty of distinguishing fluid from solid masses in breast ultrasound exams was accepted to Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. A major highlight of this paper is the inclusion of a task-based user study to determine the ability of coherence-based beamforming, specifically robust short-lag spatial coherence (R-SLSC) imaging, to assess breast mass content and ultimately impact clinical care.
The information from R-SLSC images reduced the uncertainty of fluid mass content from 47.5% to 15.8%, and the number of fluid-filled masses recommended for biopsy was reduced from 43.3% to 13.3%. This work is the first to investigate coherence-based beamforming in breast ultrasound to inform clinical decision making, highlighting the potential of this novel technique to improve diagnostic certainty and to reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies of of fluid-filled breast masses.
Citation: A Wiacek, E Oluyemi, K Myers, L Mulen, MAL Bell, Coherence-based beamforming increases the diagnostic certainty of distinguishing fluid from solid masses in breast ultrasound exams, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, accepted January 20, 2020 [pdf]