Relationship Between Certain Radiographic and Biologic Characteristics in Breast Cancer

Abstract

The relationship between mammographic appearance of microcalcifications and tumor stage, malignancy grade, estrogen receptor (ER) content and nuclear DNA pattern was studied in 92 mammary carcinomas. The results indicate that no complementary prognostic guidance can be obtained from the radiographic appearance of a tumor apart from a high probability of a spiculated cancer being ER-rich. The finding of a relatively high proportion of aneuploid and ER-poor carcinomas among tumors with microcalcifications indicates that this radiographic characteristic might be associated with increased growth potential.

Mammographic Aspect, Cell Kinetics and Hormone Receptor Status of Operable Breast Cancer

“…The presence of spicules can therefore be in terpreted as an indication of a probable hormone-sensitive tumor which, because of a slow proliferative index, in duces an intense reaction in the normal surrounding parenchyma [18]. Our observation is in agreement with previous reports [12,13,17], suggesting that a radiograph showing a breast tumor mass with spicules is likely to be highly ER positive.…”

“…In our series, the MAM class I was only composed of tumors which were considered to be marked ly spicular and not merely containing spicules. This selec tive criteria can explain the lower incidence of MAM class I cases and the corresponding high number ofcases includ ed in class IV in our series with respect to other authors [ 12,13,17], Nevertheless, our series was similar to previous re ports in terms of the percentage of hormone receptor-posi tive cases [2] and the median 3H-Tdr-LI value and their re lationships with clinical-pathological tumor characteris tics [14], Moreover, MAM classes were not found to be related to specific tumor histology of T and N categories.…”

“…In the past, attempts have been made to classify MAM tumor signs; the most common tumor radiographic groupings are those suggested by Apsimon et al [8] and later by Wolfe [9], Bjurstam [10] and Feiget al [11]. In particular, the classification as proposed by Broberg et al [12] has been shown to be related to particular biological [12,13] and histological [14] tumor characteristics.…”