Postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMR), a local therapeutic modality, is recommended to treat breast cancer patients with multiple involved axillary lymph nodes (a marker of increased systemic risk). Bothered by this conceptually flawed treatment approach we evaluated the impact of PMR on the treatment of women with four or more involved axillary lymph nodes. We identified 1164 patients treated from 1982 through 1999 with mastectomy. We reviewed the records of the 223 who demonstrated four or more positive axillary lymph nodes. Of these 128 were treated by mastectomy only and 95 by PMR. The mastectomy-only group demonstrated a mean tumor size of 3.5 cm, a median of seven axillary nodes involved, and a median of 24.9 nodes harvested. The PMR group had a mean tumor size of 4.3 cm with nine positive nodes out of a median total of 23.3 harvested. The difference in mean tumor size was statistically significant (P = 0.01). The locoregional recurrence (10.9% vs 12.6%), distant recurrence rates (42.2% vs 35.8%), and 5-year survival (51% vs 55%) were not statistically different between the mastectomy-only group versus the PMR group, respectively. Adding PMR to breast cancer treatment demonstrated no improvement in outcome. Despite limitations of this retrospective study the results strongly support evaluation of PMR by a high-quality randomized prospective trial.
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Acad Radiol
January 2025
Department of Ultrasound, The Second Clinical Medical College, Jinan University (Shenzhen People's Hospital), Shenzhen 518020, Guangdong, China (G.L., S.T., Z.H., M.W., S.M., J.X., F.D.); Department of Ultrasound, The First Affiliated Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology (Shenzhen People's Hospital), Shenzhen 518020, Guangdong, China (H.T., H.W., J.X., F.D.). Electronic address:
Rationale And Objectives: Preoperative assessment of axillary lymph node (ALN) status is essential for breast cancer management. This study explores the use of photoacoustic (PA) imaging combined with attention-guided deep learning (DL) for precise prediction of ALN status.
Materials And Methods: This retrospective study included patients with histologically confirmed early-stage breast cancer from 2022 to 2024, randomly divided (8:2) into training and test cohorts.
Sci Rep
January 2025
Nottingham Breast Cancer Research Centre, Academic Unit of Translational Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, University of Nottingham Biodiscovery Institute, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, England.
Cancer cells exhibit altered metabolism, often relying on glutamine (Gln) for growth. Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease with varying clinical outcomes. We investigated the role of the amino acid transporter SLC1A5 (ASCT2) and its association with BC subtypes and patient outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJAMA Netw Open
January 2025
Institute of Medical Science, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Importance: Secondary lymphedema is a common, harmful side effect of breast cancer treatment. Robust risk models that are externally validated are needed to facilitate clinical translation. A published risk model used 5 accessible clinical factors to predict the development of breast cancer-related lymphedema; this model included a patient's mammographic breast density as a novel predictive factor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOxf Med Case Reports
January 2025
Department of Pediatrics at Al-Baath Hospital, Al-Baath University, Al-Wehda, Homs, Syria.
Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD) is a rare condition first identified in Japan in 1972. It typically presents with high fever and lymph node swelling, and may be linked to autoimmune conditions or viral infections. A 6-year-old boy presented with cervical enlargement and recurrent high fever.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMJ Open
January 2025
Department of Breast Surgery, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China
Introduction: Despite its therapeutic advantages, postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) increases the risk of complications and often leads to poor cosmesis in women undergoing breast reconstruction. Preoperative radiotherapy followed by skin-sparing mastectomy and deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap reconstruction is technically feasible, with low rates of surgical complications and good short-term oncological outcomes. Further evaluation in a randomised trial comparing preoperative radiotherapy versus conventional PMRT in breast reconstruction is required to assess both oncological and patient-reported outcomes (PROs).
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