Background: Successful surgical treatment for localized breast cancer can depend on accurate diagnosis for accompanying non-mass enhancement (NME) on preoperative breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic value of mammography for accompanying NME adjacent to index cancer on preoperative breast MRI.
Material and methods: Among 569 consecutive patients who underwent preoperative breast MRI from January 2016 to August 2018 for ultrasound-guided biopsy-proven breast cancer, 471 patients who underwent initial mammography and subsequent surgery were finally included. Two radiologists retrospectively reviewed preoperative MRI findings of the 471 patients and detected accompanying NME adjacent to index cancer. MRI, mammography, and histopathology findings of the accompanying NME were evaluated using Pearson's chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test, and logistic regression analysis. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of MRI and combined MRI and mammography was calculated in differentiating benign from malignant accompanying NME. The reference standard was surgical pathologic findings.
Results: MRI revealed 93 accompanying NME lesions in 92 (19.5%) of the 471 patients, showing 55 (59.1%) malignant and 38 (40.9%) benign lesions. On multivariate analysis, malignant NME lesions were more associated with mammography-positive findings (P = 0.000), clumped or clustered ring internal enhancement (P = 0.015), and extensive intraductal component presence of index tumor (P = 0.007) compared with benign lesions. The AUC increased after correlation with mammography showing 0.649 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.533-0.765) for MRI and 0.833 (95% CI 0.747-0.919) for combined MRI and mammography.
Conclusion: Mammography is valuable in predicting malignancy for accompanying NME on preoperative breast MRI.
Keywords: Magnetic resonance imaging; breast neoplasms; mammography; non-mass enhancement.