Assessment of Breast Cancer Tumor Size Depends on Method, Histopathology and Tumor Size Itself*

Abstract

The dimension of invasive ductal carcinomas, small and low grading tumors is significantly better to estimate. Concerning treatment decisions, we propose a combination of all three modalities, as the best predictive value was seen for the complementary use of mammography, ultrasound and clinical examination.

Estimation of tumor size in breast cancer comparing clinical examination, mammography, ultrasound and MRI—correlation with the pathological analysis of the surgical specimen

“…These Physical exploration results are congruent with other studies published in the literature (6)(7)(8)(9)12,13). Breast density had a negative influence on the sensitivity of mammography, with sensitivity of 30-48% in very dense breast (10,(14)(15)(16). Our study compares the three techniques in all patients, we do not use analogic or digital MM, we use Mammography3D tomosynthesis, maybe can explain why we visualized the tumor by MM in all of our patients independently of mammary density, since in other studies MM does not always visualize the tumor when using analogic or digital MM (5,6,12,(15)(16)(17).…”

“…Breast density had a negative influence on the sensitivity of mammography, with sensitivity of 30-48% in very dense breast (10,(14)(15)(16). Our study compares the three techniques in all patients, we do not use analogic or digital MM, we use Mammography3D tomosynthesis, maybe can explain why we visualized the tumor by MM in all of our patients independently of mammary density, since in other studies MM does not always visualize the tumor when using analogic or digital MM (5,6,12,(15)(16)(17). However, mammography continues to be a gold standard test, since it allows visualization of lesions such as microcalcifications or in situ carcinoma, in which US has a low utility.…”

Clinical Assessment of Axillary Lymph Nodes and Tumor Size in Breast Cancer Compared with Histopathological Examination: A Population‐Based Analysis of 2,537 Women

“…There may be a considerable difference between the estimated tumour sizes pre-operatively and after histological examination (1,10,11). …”

Assessment of breast cancer tumour size using six different methods

“…Tumour size is usually assessed using a clinical examination, mammography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging of the breast, or combinations of these methods [6][7][8][9]. Mammographic and ultrasound assessment of tumour size have been described previously elsewhere.…”

“…Most studies advocate using ultrasound as the preferred method of predicting the real histopathological tumour size, although most studies have found that ultrasound underestimates the size of breast lesions [6,8,10]. However, the published studies [6,8,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] may not reflect current technical standards in mammography and ultrasound, as compound imaging and real-time elastography in particular, as a quite new technique in breast diagnosis, may now allow more accurate tumour size estimation [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Elastography is able to image the elasticity of soft tissues [21].…”