green breast ca MRI Staging of Breast Cancer vs. Surgical StagingThe American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) is holding their annual meeting in Boston this week, and a Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and University of Washington Medical Center study reported at the meeting could eventually revolutionize the way breast cancer is treated.
A retrospective study of 167 patients who underwent radiation therapy for invasive breast cancer after surgical staging of their tumors, indicates that the tumors’ physiological information shown on MRI scans correlated with surgically based findings of cancer having spread to lymph nodes.
Lead author Christopher Loiselle, M.D., a resident in the Department of Radiation Oncology at UW Medical Center, says, “… a contrast dye used routinely in MRI scans not only highlights the size and location of the tumor but also details the blood vessels feeding the tumor. The kinetics or activity of the contrast dye in the tumor provided some key parameters for comparing MRI to traditional surgical tumor staging”.
The treatment of breast cancer has changed significantly over the past decade with more women receiving chemotherapy prior to surgery. Presently, post surgical treatment, such as radiation, is based on pathology results from surgery. Because these results may be affected by the chemotherapy before surgery, finding a way to stage breast cancer prior to chemotherapy and surgery may identify who needs radiation therapy and how much of it they need.
“MRI is evolving rapidly as a diagnostic tool for breast cancer, particularly among women with high risk for the disease, because not only does it give us traditional anatomic information about tumors but information about the biology of the tumor as well. Prospective studies will need to be done to confirm the value of MRI scans in staging tumors for radiation therapy,” Loiselle said.
Press release: Breast MRI Scan Could Determine Need for Radiation Therapy
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