Magnetic resonance imaging in the preoperative setting for breast cancer patients with undetected additional disease

•Preoperative MRI displays additional disease in 10.4% of cases in patients with infiltrating ductal carcinoma.•In cases with a complex intraductal-associated component, MRI is helpful in managing the surgical approach, and can potentially reduce reoperation rates.•Preoperative MRI showed a 91.9% agreement with the final histology, but core-needle biopsy cannot be rejected, so as to limit unnecessary surgery.•When MRI shows additional disease, there is often a change in the initial surgical plan.•Evolving surgery techniques, such as oncoplastic procedures, can be safely performed as an alternative to mastectomy in some patients.

ObjectiveThe last few years have witnessed a significant increase in the preoperative use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for staging purposes in breast cancer (BC) patients. Many studies have confirmed the improvement that MRI can provide in terms of diagnostic assessment, especially with regard to additional disease foci. In the present study, we address the advantages and disadvantages of MRI in the preoperative setting for BC patients.Patients and methodsThere were 1513 consecutive breast MRI studies performed in patients with either primary or recurrent BC, who were scheduled for surgery.ResultsBeyond the primary lesion, 10.4% of our cases had additional disease at the final histological assessment. MRI overall sensitivity, when considering tumour size and additional foci together, was 74.3%, and 80.3% when considering additional foci exclusively. MRI specificity for additional disease was 95.3%, positive predictive value was 77.4%, and negative predictive value was 94.6%. Nevertheless, 5% of cases had additional tumours that were missed by MRI or, conversely, had additional foci on MRI that were not confirmed by histology. Age (p = 0.020) and lobular carcinomas (p = 0.030) showed significance in the multivariate analysis by logistic regression, using the presence of additional foci diagnosed by MRI as a dependent variable.ConclusionPreoperative MRI seems to have a role in preoperative tumour staging for breast cancer patients, as it discloses additional disease foci in some patients, including contralateral involvement. However, given the lack of absolute accuracy, core-needle biopsy cannot be neglected in the diagnosis of such additional malignant foci, which could result in a change in surgical treatment.