Purpose: This study aimed to assess the efficacy of scalp-cooling devices in preventing chemotherapy-induced alopecia in Japanese breast cancer patients and investigate whether a scalp-cooling device improves hair volume recovery over a 12 weeks period after completing chemotherapy. Methods: This multicenter controlled trial included women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy in Japan between February 2016 and March 2018. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients with no alopecia at the end of chemotherapy. The secondary endpoint included hair volume at 12 weeks after completing chemotherapy. Results: A total of 48 patients were enrolled; of them, 34 and 14 were sequentially allocated to the scalp-cooling group using the Paxman Hair Loss Prevention System and the control group, respectively. There was no significant difference in average age between the scalp-cooling and the control groups (50.0 ± 9.6 vs. 49.0 ± 9.0 years). More than 50% of patients in each group had stage II breast cancer (scalp-cooling group: 53.1%; control group: 64.3%), more than 90% received adjuvant chemotherapy (scalp-cooling group: 96.9%; control group: 92.9%), and more than 60% were treated with a docetaxel/cyclophosphamide regimen (scalp-cooling group: 75.0%; control group: 64.3%). There were more patients judged to have no alopecia at the end of chemotherapy in the scalp-cooling group than in the control group (26.7% [8/30] vs. 0% [0/13]; P = 0.011). The proportion of patients with alopecia who experienced an increase in hair volume of ≥50% within 12 weeks duration after chemotherapy was 85.7% (24/28) in the scalp-cooling group and 50.0% (6/12) in the control group. No patient developed serious adverse events related to the scalp-cooling device. Conclusions: The use of a scalp-cooling device prevented alopecia with acceptable safety for Japanese patients. In addition, scalp cooling resulted in faster recovery of hair volume after chemotherapy, even in patients for whom scalp cooling failed to prevent chemotherapy-induced alopecia.

Purpose: To evaluate diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance (DW) imaging as an adjunct to mammography for the detection of small invasive breast cancer. Materials and Methods:Institutional review board standards were followed for this retrospective study. We performed both breast DW imaging and mammography on 25 women under 50 years of age with pathologically proven T1 breast cancer and on 21 healthy women under 50 years of age. Four offsite radiologists blind to the clinical information independently interpreted the mammograms and DW images and then classified their confidence level regarding the presence of breast cancer. The composite area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), of mammography alone, DW imaging alone, and the combination of DW imaging and mammography (DWI/Cal) were calculated.Results: The AUC of composite ROC curves of mammography, DW imaging, DWI/Cal combination, was 0.79 (95% CI, 0.86 (95% CI,, and 0.96 (95% CI, 0.92-1.00), respectively.Conclusion: DW imaging may be a useful adjunct to mammography in the detection of small invasive breast cancer in women under 50 years of age.

This article updates readers as to what is new in the Japanese Breast Cancer Society Clinical Practice Guidelines for Breast Cancer Screening and Diagnosis, 2018 Edition. Breast cancer screening issues are covered, including matters of breast density and possible supplemental modalities, along with appropriate pre-operative/follow-up diagnostic breast imaging tests. Up-to-date clinical practice guidelines for breast cancer screening and diagnosis should help to provide patients and clinicians with not only evidence-based breast imaging options, but also accurate and balanced information about the benefits and harms of intervention, which ultimately enables shared decision making about imaging test plans.

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