Sonographic classification of axillary lymph nodes is effective for predicting the presence of metastases to avoid sentinel node biopsy or to reduce unsuccessful lymphatic mapping during sentinel node biopsy.

Background The aim of this study was to determine factors that predict under-evaluation of malignancy in patients diagnosed with atypical ductal hyperplasia (ADH) at ultrasound-guided core needle biopsy (CNB), and to develop a prediction algorithm for scoring the possibility of a diagnosis upgrade to malignancy based on clinical, radiological and pathological factors. Methods The study enrolled patients diagnosed with ADH at ultrasound-guided CNB who subsequently underwent surgical excision of the lesion. Multivariate analysis was used to identify relevant clinical, radiological and pathological factors that may predict malignancy. Results A total of 102 patients with ADH at CNB were identified. Of the 74 patients who underwent subsequent surgical excision, 34 (45.8%) were diagnosed with invasive or in situ malignant foci. Multivariate analysis revealed that age [50 years, microcalcification on mammography, size on imaging [15 mm and a palpable lesion were independent predictors of malignancy. Focal ADH was a negative predictor. A scoring system was developed based on logistic regression models and beta coefficients for each variable. The area under the ROC curve was 0.903 (95% CI: 0.82-0.94), and the negative predictive value was 100% for a score B3.5. Similar findings were observed for a validation dataset of 54 patients at other institutions. Conclusions A scoring system to predict malignancy in patients diagnosed with ADH at CNB was developed based on five factors: age, palpable lesion, microcalcification on mammography, size on imaging and focal ADH. This system was able to identify a subset of patients with lesions likely to be benign, indicating that imaging follow-up rather than surgical excision may be appropriate.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is defined by a lack of expression of estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors, and genetically most of them fall into the basal subgroup of breast cancer. The important issue of TNBC is poorer clinical outcome and absence of effective targeted therapy. In this study, we sought to identify DNA copy number alterations and expression of relevant genes characteristic of TNBC to discover potential therapeutic targets. Frozen tissues from 114 breast cancers were analyzed using high-resolution array comparative genomic hybridization. The classification into subtype was determined by estrogen and progesterone receptor expression, and by the presence or absence of gain on the ERBB2 containing clone. The ACE algorithm was used for calling gain and loss of clones. Twenty-eight cases (25%) were classified as TNBC. Recurrent gains (> or =25%) unique to TNBC were 9p24-p21, 10p15-p13, 12p13, 13q31-q34, 18q12, 18q21-q23, and 21q22. Two published gene expression array data sets comparing basal subtype versus other subtype breast cancers were used for searching candidate genes. Of the genes upregulated in the basal subtype, 45 of 686 genes in one data set and 59 of 1,428 in the second data set were found to be located in the gained regions. Of these candidate genes, gain of NFIB (9p24.1) was specific for TNBC in a validation set by real-time PCR. In conclusion, we have identified recurrently gained regions characteristic of TNBC, and found that NFIB copy number and expression is increased in TNBC across the data sets. This article contains Supplementary Material available at http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/1045-2257/suppmat.

A sonographic lesion size >20 mm can be used as another guideline for surgeons to consider sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with DCIS diagnosed by a sonographically guided CNB.

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