Is Grading of Breast Fibrosis with Mammography Feasible?

Abstract

Grading fibrosis as depicted by mammography is possible, especially if observers prepare by jointly analyzing a training group. It may be useful to study treatment effects, e. g., of fractionation or drugs, because retrospective and repeated analysis is possible. The correlation of mammography with clinical grading should be further evaluated with more objective clinical reference tools.

Fibrotic Changes after Postmastectomy Radiotherapy and Reconstructive Surgery in Breast Cancer

“…It should, however, be noted that tamoxifen has been associated with an increased rate of fibrosis of the lung and subcutaneous and breast tissue in conjunction with radiotherapy [1,2,9,10]. Therefore, systemic treatment may have a considerable impact on fibrosis in breast reconstruction.…”

Oncoplastic breast surgery and radiotherapy-Adverse aesthetic outcomes, proposed classification of aesthetic components, and causality attribution

“…Perhaps since these were subtler changes, in the START data, there was lowest percentage agreement between PROMS and clinical assessment in breast shrinkage (53% and 47% at 2 and 5 years) with patients reporting higher adverse changes . Also, since there were varying degrees of severity of fibrosis, there may be connotations with mammographic surveillance. Further, in the recently published IMPORT‐LOW trial data, although breast edema at 5 years was low across all arms (<1%) at 5 years, breast shrinkage was not as low (7%‐9% range) between the three arms suggesting delayed occurrence of this RT effect …”