Exploring association of breast pain, pregnancy, and body mass index with breast tissue elasticity in healthy women: Glandular and fat differences

Martina Dzoic Dominkovic; Gordana Ivanac; Kristina Bojanic; Kristina Kralik; Martina Smolic; Eugen Divjak; Robert Smolic; Boris Brkljacic

doi:10.3390/diagnostics10060393

Exploring association of breast pain, pregnancy, and body mass index with breast tissue elasticity in healthy women: Glandular and fat differences

Martina Dzoic Dominkovic, Gordana Ivanac, Kristina Bojanic, Kristina Kralik, Martina Smolic, Eugen Divjak, Robert Smolic^*, Boris Brkljacic

^*Corresponding author for this work

Faculty of Medicine

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Breast sonoelastography is a relatively novel ultrasound (US) method that enables estimation of tissue stiffness to estimate the elasticity of normal breast tissue and seek to correlate it with well-known breast cancer risk factors. Two hundred women of different age were included in the study and completed a questionnaire about personal, familiar, and reproductive history. Glandular and fatty tissue elasticity in all breast quadrants was measured by shear wave elastography (SWE). Mean elastographic values of breast tissue were calculated and compared to personal history risk factors. Elasticity of normal glandular tissue (66.4 kilopascals (kPa)) was higher than fatty tissue (26.1 kPa) in all breast quadrants and in both breasts. Lower outer quadrant (LOQ) had the lowest elasticity values of both parenchyma and fat. Higher elasticity values of breast tissue were confirmed in the left breast than in the right breast. Glandular and fat tissue elasticity negatively correlated with body mass index (BMI). Women with mastodynia had higher glandular elastographic values compared to subjects without breast pain. Nuliparity was also associated with higher elasticity of glandular breast tissue. The results of this study are promising and could, over time, contribute to a better understanding of glandular breast tissue elasticity as a potential risk factor for breast cancer.

Original language	English
Article number	393
Journal	Diagnostics
Volume	10
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics10060393
Publication status	Published - Jun 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This research has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under project IP-2016-06-2997 “Sonoelastography and MRI in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer”, University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Dubrava, Zagreb (to B.B.). The APC was funded by grants from Croatian Ministry of Science and Education dedicated to multi-year institutional funding of scientific activity at the J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia—grants’ numbers: IP7-FDMZ-2019 (to M.S.) and IP6-MEFOS-2019 (to R.S.).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Other keywords

Body mass index
Breast
Mastodynia
Shear wave elastography
Ultrasonography

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10.3390/diagnostics10060393

Cite this

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title = "Exploring association of breast pain, pregnancy, and body mass index with breast tissue elasticity in healthy women: Glandular and fat differences",

abstract = "Breast sonoelastography is a relatively novel ultrasound (US) method that enables estimation of tissue stiffness to estimate the elasticity of normal breast tissue and seek to correlate it with well-known breast cancer risk factors. Two hundred women of different age were included in the study and completed a questionnaire about personal, familiar, and reproductive history. Glandular and fatty tissue elasticity in all breast quadrants was measured by shear wave elastography (SWE). Mean elastographic values of breast tissue were calculated and compared to personal history risk factors. Elasticity of normal glandular tissue (66.4 kilopascals (kPa)) was higher than fatty tissue (26.1 kPa) in all breast quadrants and in both breasts. Lower outer quadrant (LOQ) had the lowest elasticity values of both parenchyma and fat. Higher elasticity values of breast tissue were confirmed in the left breast than in the right breast. Glandular and fat tissue elasticity negatively correlated with body mass index (BMI). Women with mastodynia had higher glandular elastographic values compared to subjects without breast pain. Nuliparity was also associated with higher elasticity of glandular breast tissue. The results of this study are promising and could, over time, contribute to a better understanding of glandular breast tissue elasticity as a potential risk factor for breast cancer.",

keywords = "Body mass index, Breast, Mastodynia, Shear wave elastography, Ultrasonography",

author = "Dominkovic, {Martina Dzoic} and Gordana Ivanac and Kristina Bojanic and Kristina Kralik and Martina Smolic and Eugen Divjak and Robert Smolic and Boris Brkljacic",

note = "Funding Information: Funding: This research has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under project IP-2016-06-2997 “Sonoelastography and MRI in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer”, University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Dubrava, Zagreb (to B.B.). The APC was funded by grants from Croatian Ministry of Science and Education dedicated to multi-year institutional funding of scientific activity at the J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia—grants{\textquoteright} numbers: IP7-FDMZ-2019 (to M.S.) and IP6-MEFOS-2019 (to R.S.). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).",

year = "2020",

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doi = "10.3390/diagnostics10060393",

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AU - Dominkovic, Martina Dzoic

AU - Ivanac, Gordana

AU - Bojanic, Kristina

AU - Kralik, Kristina

AU - Smolic, Martina

AU - Divjak, Eugen

AU - Smolic, Robert

AU - Brkljacic, Boris

N1 - Funding Information: Funding: This research has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under project IP-2016-06-2997 “Sonoelastography and MRI in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer”, University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Dubrava, Zagreb (to B.B.). The APC was funded by grants from Croatian Ministry of Science and Education dedicated to multi-year institutional funding of scientific activity at the J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia—grants’ numbers: IP7-FDMZ-2019 (to M.S.) and IP6-MEFOS-2019 (to R.S.). Publisher Copyright: © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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N2 - Breast sonoelastography is a relatively novel ultrasound (US) method that enables estimation of tissue stiffness to estimate the elasticity of normal breast tissue and seek to correlate it with well-known breast cancer risk factors. Two hundred women of different age were included in the study and completed a questionnaire about personal, familiar, and reproductive history. Glandular and fatty tissue elasticity in all breast quadrants was measured by shear wave elastography (SWE). Mean elastographic values of breast tissue were calculated and compared to personal history risk factors. Elasticity of normal glandular tissue (66.4 kilopascals (kPa)) was higher than fatty tissue (26.1 kPa) in all breast quadrants and in both breasts. Lower outer quadrant (LOQ) had the lowest elasticity values of both parenchyma and fat. Higher elasticity values of breast tissue were confirmed in the left breast than in the right breast. Glandular and fat tissue elasticity negatively correlated with body mass index (BMI). Women with mastodynia had higher glandular elastographic values compared to subjects without breast pain. Nuliparity was also associated with higher elasticity of glandular breast tissue. The results of this study are promising and could, over time, contribute to a better understanding of glandular breast tissue elasticity as a potential risk factor for breast cancer.

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ER -

Exploring association of breast pain, pregnancy, and body mass index with breast tissue elasticity in healthy women: Glandular and fat differences

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Other keywords

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