Efficacy of the echo pattern classification of ovarian tumors 2000 in conjunction with transvaginal ultrasonography for diagnosis of ovarian masses

Purpose

Because of the need for rapid, accurate clinical differentiation between malignant and benign ovarian masses, we investigated the diagnostic efficacy of the echo pattern classification used together with transvaginal ultrasound.

Methods

We classified, on the basis of six echo pattern types, transvaginal ultrasound images of 405 ovarian masses treated surgically between January 2011 and December 2012. We compared the resulting classifications to the postoperative histopathologic diagnoses and computed the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of the echo pattern-based classification for malignancy.

Results

Our review yielded the following echo patterns: type I, n = 61; type II; n = 154; type III, n = 82; type IV, n = 61; type V, n = 34; and type VI, n = 13. Histopathologically, there were 75 borderline malignant/malignant tumors and 330 benign tumors. Diagnostic sensitivity was 80.0 % and specificity was 85.5 % when echo types I–III were categorized as benign and types IV–VI were categorized as malignant. Further, with respect to benign tumors: sensitivity and specificity for chocolate cysts were 85.5 and 88.4 %, respectively, and for dermoid cysts were 67.2 and 97.9 %, respectively.

Conclusions

With the echo pattern classification, ovarian masses can be diagnosed easily and accurately upon transvaginal ultrasound.