Clinico-pathological characteristics, increased incidence, and mortality associated with aging can be explained on one hand by biological changes of the breast such as increased estrogen sensitivity, epithelial cell alterations, immune senescence, and tumor microenvironment modifications. However, sociologic factors such as increased life expectancy, under-treatment, late diagnosis, and insufficient individual screening, are also involved.

BackgroundThe aim of this study was the evaluation of breast MRI in determining the size and focality of invasive non-metastatic breast cancers.MethodsThe prospective, single-centre study conducted in 2015 compared preoperative MRI with histological analysis of mastectomy.ResultsOne hundred one mastectomies from 98 patients were extensively analysed. The rates of false-positive and false-negative MRI were 2 and 4% respectively. The sensitivity of breast MRI was 84.7% for the detection of all invasive foci, 69% for single foci and 65.7% for multiple foci. In the evaluation of tumour size, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient r between the sizes obtained by MRI and histology was 0.62. The MRI-based prediction of a complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy was 75%.DiscussionMRI exhibits high sensitivity in the detection of invasive breast cancers. False positives were linked to the inflammatory nature of the tumour bed. False negatives were associated with small or low-grade tumours and their retro-areolar location. The size of T1 tumours was overestimated by an average of 7%, but MRI was the most efficient procedure. The sensitivity of MRI for the diagnosis of unifocal tumours was higher than that for multifocal sites. Our study confirmed the positive contribution of preoperative MRI for invasive lobular carcinomas and complete response predictions after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.