Screening women at high risk for breast cancer with mammography and magnetic resonance imaging.

Background: The authors compared the performance of screening mammography versus magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in women at genetically high risk for breast cancer.

Methods: The authors conducted an international prospective study of screening mammography and MRI in asymptomatic, genetically high-risk women age >/= 25 years. Women with a history of breast cancer were eligible for a contralateral screening if they had been diagnosed within 5 years or a bilateral screening if they had been diagnosed > 5 years previously.

Mammographic local staging of breast carcinoma: methods and limitations.

Mammographic local staging of invasive carcinoma and DCIS begins during diagnostic mammography before the first biopsy intervention and continues through the wire localization, excision, and pathologic evaluation of the entire extent of the lesion. Better understanding of the limitations of mammographic staging can direct future research and development. For the evaluation of pre-existing or novel local staging techniques for breast carcinoma, outcomes not only include breast cancer overall survival and disease-free survival, but local recurrence after breast conservation treatment as well as the need for re-excision after primary excision.

Internal mammary lymph node (IMN) coverage by standard radiation tangent fields in patients showing IMN drainage on lymphoscintigraphy: therapeutic implications.

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the variability in coverage of the internal mammary nodal chain (IMN) by standard radiation tangential fields in those patients with medial drainage on lymphoscintigraphy. Twenty-two patients who showed lymphoscintigraphic IMN drainage underwent radiation simulation planned with computed tomography (CT). Standard tangent fields were placed and CT scans were reviewed to assess IMN inclusion and correlation with presternal fat thickness.

Microtome shaving radiography: demonstration of loss of mammographic microcalcifications during histologic sectioning.

Mammographic-pathologic correlation of suspicious microcalcifications is essential for optimal diagnosis and local staging of early breast carcinoma. Loss of microcalcifications during histologic sectioning has been suggested as one reason for the occasional lack of microscopic visualization of microcalcifications in routinely processed breast biopsy specimens obtained for suspicious mammographic microcalcifications. Two case reports utilizing radiography of histologic shavings of stereotactic core biopsies and surgical excisional biopsies of mammographic microcalcifications provide concrete evidence of the loss of large calcific particles during the microtome process.

Mammographic predictors of the presence and size of invasive carcinomas associated with malignant microcalcification lesions without a mass.

Objective: Our objective was to determine the degree with which mammographic features predict the presence and size of invasive carcinomas associated with malignant mammographic microcalcification lesions without a mass.

Materials And Methods: Mammographic features were correlated with pathologic features in 304 consecutive breast carcinomas manifested by mammographic calcifications only in a prospective evaluation.

Results: Mammographic calcifications associated with breast carcinoma had the final pathologic diagnoses of pure ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in 65% of patients, DCIS with a focus of invasion in 32%, and invasive carcinoma only in 4%.