Assessment of response to therapy of primary breast cancer by mammography and physical examination.

Background: Accurate assessment of response to treatment is necessary to treat appropriately primary breast cancers that are not surgically removed. This retrospective study was undertaken to compare the effectiveness of physical examination (PE) and mammography to assess response of primary breast cancer to medical therapy in women who were ineligible for initial surgical treatment.

Methods: Thirteen women with 14 breast carcinomas were evaluated for interval changes. Except for 1 patient who had two follow-up studies, the other 12 each had a single follow-up study including PE and mammography; changes therefore were assessed in 15 instances. Response to treatment also was judged by mastectomy results in two instances, changes in metastatic disease by other imaging procedures in five, and changes in primary tumor by computed tomography in two breasts.

Results: In 11 of 15 assessments of posttherapy changes, PE and mammography results were similar concerning treatment response. Of four discordant follow-ups, the tumors were found to be stable by PE, whereas they were found to be increasing by mammography in two. In both of these cases, progression of disease outside the breast was identified by other imaging studies, consistent with the mammographic findings. In another case, disease appeared to regress by PE but was unchanged by mammography; disease extent in mastectomy specimens was consistent with that found mammographically and more extensive than that suggested by physical examination. In the fourth case, superficial healing of a fungating tumor was obvious by clinical examination but could not be appreciated by mammography. The detectability of changes was not related to type of treatment.

Conclusions: Physical examination and mammography are both useful in the serial evaluation of breast cancers. Although usually complimentary, disease progression, when it occurs, may be detected by only one of these methods.