Breast MRI tops DBT-ABVS for cancer staging

Tuesday, November 27 | 3:30 p.m.-3:40 p.m. | SSJ02-04 | Room E353C

Breast MRI performs better for breast cancer treatment staging than the combination of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) and ultrasound automated breast volume scanning (ABVS) -- but the latter works well enough to offer patients an alternative if MRI isn't available, Italian researchers have found.

Dr. Rossano Girometti from the University of Udine will share results from a study that included 73 patients with histologically proven breast cancer who underwent preoperative DBT plus ABVS, as well as 1.5-tesla MRI, between July 2015 and July 2016. The group used histology or one-year follow-up as the standard of reference to calculate cancer detection accuracy for both imaging approaches.

Out of 160 lesions, 108 were cancerous and 52 were benign. Diagnostic accuracy was comparable for DBT-ABVS and breast MRI (90.0% versus 93.8%), although DBT-ABVS had lower sensitivity and positive predictive value for additional disease (76.5% and 91.7%) than breast MRI (78.8% and 93.4%).

In addition, DBT-ABVS missed six lesions that breast MRI found, two of which were invasive cancers and one of which was ductal carcinoma in situ.

DBT-ABVS is less accurate than MRI in staging breast cancer treatment, but its diagnostic accuracy is good enough to offer an alternative if breast MRI is unavailable, the group concluded.