Diagnostic Value Of Mammographic Calcifications In Impalpable Breast Cancer

Backgrounds:Breast cancer is a malignant cancer that is developed in breast epithelial tissue. The motality of breast cancer is at the first place in female malignant cancer. In recent years, the incidence of breast cancer presented an upward trend, and the age distribution become younger. Early diagnosis of breast cancer is very important to patients prognosis. But it is difficult to early diagnosis breast only by physical palpation. Palpation combined with color ultrasonic, mammography and magnetic resonance image(MRI), can improve the diagnosis rate. Mammography has the advantages of high sensitivity to calcifications, low cost and high security. It has been known to be the first choice to early diagnose breast cancer.Objective:To explore the features of mammographic calcifications in impalpable breast cancer,identify radiologic and clinical factors associated with breast cancer and investigate the correlation between the appearance of mammographic calcifications and pathological types, which can improve the clinical diagnosis of impalpable breast cancer and provide clinical criteria for selecting patients for appropriate local treatment.Methods:Retrospectively reviewed 92 lesions of 83 patients who underwent puncture biopsy or operation at the Department of Breast Surgery, Qilu hospital of Shandong University between 1 July 2013 and 28 Febrary 2015. All these lesions have the commons of impalpable, mammographic calcifications without mass sign. Statistically significant radiological characteristics such as density and distribution for beast cancer were observed. Radiological and clinical characteristics were analyzed. All the data was managed by Microsoft Excel 2010 and analyzed by IBM SPSS Statistics 19.Results:All the 83 patients are female, age range from 25 years old to 74 years old.29 out of the 92 lesions are malignant and the other 63 lesions are benign. Types of malignant lesions:DCIS and LCIS (19 cases), invasive carcinoma (10 cases). Lesions with higher density of distribution of calcification (≥20/cm2) had the higher proportion of breast cancer (54.05% vs.16.26%, P<0.05). Cluster distributions of mammographic calcifications point out the higher possibility fomalignizition than diffused ones (47.06% vs.12.20%, P<0.05)Conclusion:Lesions with higher density of distributions and cluster distributions of mammographic calcifications point out the higher possibility fomalignizition. Mammography is one of the important methods for differentiation of benign and malignant changes for breast disease. Mammographic calcifications may lead to early diagnosis of breast cancer.