A bump: what to do next? Ultrasound imaging of superficial soft-tissue palpable lesions.
Soft-tissue palpable lesions are common in clinical practice, and ultrasound (US) represents the first imaging option in the evaluation of a patient with a soft-tissue swelling. A full and systematic US assessment is necessary, however. This includes grayscale, color- and power-Doppler, spectral-Doppler, and possibly elastography facilities, as well as a trained operator. Several lesions showing characteristic US features can be diagnosed confidently, without any further work-up, and the high spatial resolution of ultrasound in the superficial layers can be a powerful tool to discriminate their etiologies. Second-level options, to be reserved for indeterminate cases or those suspected malignant at initial ultrasound, include magnetic resonance imaging, percutaneous fine-needle aspiration or biopsy, and surgical-excision biopsy. In this article, we discuss the proper US approach for addressing superficial soft-tissue lesions.
['Catalano|Orlando|O|http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0188-1236', 'Varelli|Carlo|C|', 'Sbordone|Carolina|C|', 'Corvino|Antonio|A|', 'De Rosa|Dario|D|', 'Vallone|Gianfranco|G|', 'Wortsman|Ximena|X|']
D044963:Biopsy, Fine-Needle D006801:Humans D012983:Soft Tissue Neoplasms D014463:Ultrasonography
Color-Doppler ultrasound Dermatology ultrasound Skin tumors Soft tissues Soft-tissue sarcoma Soft-tissue ultrasound