Glomus tumors in the fingers: diagnosis with US.

To the author's knowledge, no direct imaging technique has been used routinely in the diagnosis of glomus tumors. Twelve patients with proved glomus tumors of the fingers were examined with high-resolution real-time ultrasound (US). US depicted the tumor preoperatively in nine patients (75%). All detected tumors were hypoechoic on US scans. The smallest tumor detected was 3 mm in diameter. A limitation of US is in the detection of small, flattened subungual lesions. These preliminary observations indicate that US imaging with high-frequency transducers is useful in both the diagnosis and the preoperative three-dimensional localization of glomus tumors.