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Clinicians often refer patients with skin or subcutaneous masses for ultrasound evaluation, but little is known about its diagnostic accuracy. In this retrospective study from Hong Kong, researchers reviewed 714 ultrasound examinations of superficial soft-tissue tumors that were performed by experienced musculoskeletal radiologists.
In 247 cases for which biopsy results were available, initial ultrasound diagnoses were accurate in 77% of cases. The most common pathologic diagnoses were lipoma (43%), vascular malformation (12%), epidermoid cyst (12%), and nerve sheath tumor (6%). Accuracy of initial ultrasound readings was particularly high for lipoma (95%) and epidermoid cyst (87%). Among 11 patients with confirmed malignancies, radiologists…