Second opinions change breast cancer diagnoses

AuntMinnie.com staff writers

Sep 25, 2018

2017 06 19 16 53 29 429 Patient Doctor 400

Second opinions can change the diagnosis for almost half of breast cancer patients -- suggesting that it's worthwhile for women to pursue the additional input, according to a study published in the October issue of the Annals of Surgical Oncology.

A team led by Dr. Denise Garcia from the Medical University of South Carolina analyzed reports from 70 patients diagnosed with breast cancer at outside institutions who sought second opinions between August 2015 and March 2016. The researchers compared the other institutions' radiology, pathology, and genetic testing reports with reports generated by its own multidisciplinary tumor board review (Ann Surg Oncol, October 2018, Vol. 25:10, pp. 2953-2957).

Garcia and colleagues found that 30 (43%) of the 70 patients had a change in diagnosis as a result of the Medical University of South Carolina tumor board review. The review identified new cancers in 16 patients (23%); for 14 (20%) of the 70 patients, it led to a change in pathology interpretation.

"The study findings support the conclusion that referral for a second opinion is beneficial and has a diagnostic impact for many patients," they concluded.

(A) Free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curve for DBT-DINO and DINOv2 (Meta AI) on the detection task. DINOv2 achieved higher sensitivity than DBT-DINO across most false-positive thresholds. (B) Detection rates of DBT-DINO and DINOv2 for lesions that were ultimately found to be benign (n = 70) and lesions that were found to be cancerous (n = 66). Error bars represent 95% CIs estimated via patient-level bootstrapping with 1000 repetitions. Both models showed similar detection rates for cancerous lesions, whereas DINOv2 detected more benign lesions than DBT-DINO. (C) Example bounding box predictions for DBT-DINO and DINOv2 on the detection test set. Each image is a single two-dimensional section from a three-dimensional digital breast tomosynthesis volume; the first column shows a mediolateral oblique view, and the second and third columns show craniocaudal views. Both models struggled to detect very small lesions, such as the 3-mm-diameter lesion shown in the first column. FP = false positive.

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Images in a 70-year-old asymptomatic woman with a prior excisional biopsy in the left breast yielding lobular carcinoma in situ 3 years earlier. Screening contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) was performed, which was considered a prevalence screen as the woman had no prior breast MRI in the past 3 years and no prior CEM. (A) Low-energy (26–30 kVp) mediolateral oblique (MLO) and (B) craniocaudal (CC) views show surgical clips but no abnormality. (C) Recombined MLO and (D) CC images show an enhancing mass in the medial left breast (arrows). Biopsy revealed invasive lobular carcinoma. Size was 0.2 cm; tumor grade II/III; negative lymph nodes; and estrogen receptor–positive, progesterone receptor–positive, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–negative.

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(A) Free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curve for DBT-DINO and DINOv2 (Meta AI) on the detection task. DINOv2 achieved higher sensitivity than DBT-DINO across most false-positive thresholds. (B) Detection rates of DBT-DINO and DINOv2 for lesions that were ultimately found to be benign (n = 70) and lesions that were found to be cancerous (n = 66). Error bars represent 95% CIs estimated via patient-level bootstrapping with 1000 repetitions. Both models showed similar detection rates for cancerous lesions, whereas DINOv2 detected more benign lesions than DBT-DINO. (C) Example bounding box predictions for DBT-DINO and DINOv2 on the detection test set. Each image is a single two-dimensional section from a three-dimensional digital breast tomosynthesis volume; the first column shows a mediolateral oblique view, and the second and third columns show craniocaudal views. Both models struggled to detect very small lesions, such as the 3-mm-diameter lesion shown in the first column. FP = false positive.

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A normal mammogram confirmed by three-year radiologic follow-up illustrates reader-marked regions of interest (ROIs) during (A) unaided (round 1) and (B) artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted (round 2) reading. Each colored dot represents an ROI for recall by a human reader. Readers could mark more than one ROI per case, represented by multiple dots of the same color. During AI-assisted reading, the AI system displayed three visible prompts: two with suspicion of malignancy scores of 35% (left mediolateral oblique [L MLO] and craniocaudal [L CC]) and one with a suspicion of malignancy score of 10% (right craniocaudal [R CC]), shown as polygonal overlays. Without AI, six of 10 readers (60%) marked a false-positive ROI. With AI assistance, this fell to two of 10 (20%). R MLO = right mediolateral oblique.

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MRI false positive for additional disease, (top to bottom): A. Index lesion—grade 2 invasive ductal carcinoma; B. MRI lesion two, upper inner quadrant: Stromal sclerosis and columnar cell change; C. MRI lesion three, upper outer quadrant: No ultrasound correlate, no malignancy on follow-up; D. CEM marked background parenchymal enhancement with a unifocal retroareolar lesion demonstrating wash-out on delayed MLO. Images are republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).

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