Breast saving therapy of breast cancer: sensitivity of mammography in relation to primary tumor size
Stierli, P.; Spichtig, S.; Aeberhard, P.
Helvetica Chirurgica Acta 59(1): 247-252
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 0018-0181 PMID: 1526836 Document Number: 392505
A number of patients with early breast cancer are candidates for conservative surgery and irradiation. The possibility for limited surgery has to be discussed with the patient preoperatively and depends mostly on tumor-size in relation to breast-size. We correlated mammographic and pathologic measured tumor-size in a retrospective study in 57 breast cancer patients. The sensitivity of mammography depended on the accepted range of error between mammographic and pathologic measured tumor-size. With an accepted range of +/- 20% the sensitivity was only 45%, with an accepted range of +/- 30% it was 63%. These rather bad results advise to have a very careful preoperative discussion with the patient about breast conserving or ablative surgery. Possibly there is higher sensitivity in preoperative tumor-size measurement with real-time-sonography.