Clinical usefulness of color doppler ultrasound in patients with endometrial hyperplasia and carcinoma

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to examine the usefulness of transvaginal color Doppler ultrasound (TV‐CDU) in differentiating between endometrial hyperplasia (EH) and endometrial carcinoma (EC) and in predicting tumor spread in patients with EC. METHODS Seventy‐one postmenopausal patients were enrolled with either EH or EC that had been diagnosed by endometrial biopsy. The presence or absence of intratumoral blood flow was assessed by TV‐CDU. The intratumoral blood flow characteristics were analyzed using the resistance index (RI), pulsatility index (PI), and peak systolic velocity (PSV). The endometrial thickness also was measured in all patients by gray‐scale sonography. The correlation of these sonographic findings with histologic type, tumor grade, surgical stage, myometrial invasion, or the presence or absence of pelvic lymph node metastasis was then evaluated in patients with EC. RESULTS Although there were no patients with EC with endometrial thickness measuring < 5 mm, no significant difference was found in the mean value of endometrial thickness between patients with EH (n = 18 patients; 16.2 mm ± 15.9 mm) and patients with EC (n = 53 patients; 18.7 mm ± 17.1 mm). Intratumoral blood flow was detected in significant numbers of patients who had EC (71.7%; 38 of 53 patients) compared with patients who had EH (5.6%; 1 of 18 patients; P < 0.0001). Thus, no patients with EH showed any blood flow in the endometrial lesions, except for one patient who had EH complicated by pyometra. In patients with EC, the positive rate of intratumoral blood flow was correlated significantly with myometrial invasion, tumor grade, and pelvic lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05; Cochran–Armitage trend test). No associations were found between RI, PI, or PSV and the clinicopathologic parameters examined, including surgical stage. CONCLUSIONS TV‐CDU may be more useful in differentiating between EH and EC than measuring endometrial thickness by transvaginal gray‐scale sonography. For patients with EC, the detection of intratumoral blood flow may be helpful in distinguishing between low‐grade and high‐grade tumors and predicting myometrial invasion. However, intratumoral blood flow analysis using RI, PI, or PSV may not be useful for predicting tumor spread before surgery. Cancer 2002;94:700–6. © 2002 American Cancer Society. DOI 10.1002/cncr.10208 Transvaginal color Doppler ultrasound may be more useful in differentiating between endometrial hyperplasia and carcinoma t