To investigate the value of the automated breast volume scanning (ABVS) combined with virtual touch tissue imaging quantification (VTIQ) in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast lesion.

Five hundred and seven patients with a total of 675 breast nodules were detected using ABVS and VTIQ technique. Of them, coronal plane imaging, SWVmax, SWVmin, and SWVmean (in m/s) for each nodule was acquired three days before operation or core needle biopsy. According to pathological results, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the utility of the ABVS alone (retraction phenomenon on coronal plane), VTIQ alone and their combination in the diagnosis of breast lesions.

Among all nodules, 504 lesions were benign, and 171 were malignant. The rate of retraction phenomenon on coronal plane in malignant lesions was significantly higher than that in benign lesions (χ²=279.89, P<0.001). The value of SWVmax, SWVmin, SWVmean (6.79±1.71 m/s, 5.03±1.24 m/s, 5.74±1.36 m/s) in malignant nodules were higher than that of benign nodules [(3.41±1.51) m/s, (2.46±0.87) m/s, (2.65±1.23) m/s], the differences were statistically significant (t=32.43, 33.85, 26.77, all P<0.001). The AUC of malignant nodules for SWV (maximum, minimum, and average) were 0.922, 0.934 and 0.937, respectively. With cut-off value of 4.045 m/s, SWVmean showed the best diagnostic performance. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of the retraction phenomenon on coronal plane, SWVmean and their combination in diagnosing malignant breast lesion were (39.65%, 94.39%, 95.78%), (97.50%, 94.39%, 95.53%) and (82.84%, 93.51%, 94.25%), respectively. And the SWVmean showed significant higher sensitivity than that of retraction phenomenon. The diagnostic capacity significantly improved when the two approaches were combined.

Both the retraction phenomenon on coronal plane and VTIQ had high diagnostic value, combining the two methods can improve the differential diagnosis ability for breast lesions.