The present study was undertaken to evaluate superficial soft tissue masses in 50 patients by gray-scale and color Doppler ultrasonography. In the study 30 males (60%) and 20 (40%) females were taken. Majority of cases (26%) were in 0-10 years age range. The swellings were mostly seen in the extremities (46%) and head and neck (22%). Out of 50 patients, there were 44 patients having benign masses and six patients with malignant masses. The benign masses were grouped as inflammatory, developmental, benign tumors and other masses. Inflammatory masses include pyogenic abscess (7), cold abscess (4), parasitic cyst (5) and foreign body (2). The developmental masses were cystic hygroma (4), haemangioma (4), dermoid (2), and throglossal duct cyst (1). Benign tumors were fibrolipoma(4), lipoma(2), neurogenic tumor(2), fibroma(1), sacrococcygeal tumor(1) and sweat gland tumor(1). In other benign masses haematoma(2) and Baker’s cyst(2) were included. On ultrasonography masses were characterized as having cystic (anechoic), solid (hypoechoic, hyperechoic or isoechoic) or complex echopattern. Though the gray scale ultrasonography helped in characterization of superficial soft tissue masses, but the differentiation between benign and malignant masses were mainly possible by color doppler sonography. All the malignant masses were vascular and majority (83.3%) has central flow signal or a combination of central and peripheral flow signal. Significant difference was found in maximum systolic velocity among benign and malignant masses in our series.
