Purpose
Over 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been already administered across the US, the UK and the EU at the time of writing. Furthermore, 1.82 million of booster doses have been administered in the US since 13
th
August, and similar booster programmes are currently planned or under consideration in the UK and the EU beginning in the autumn of 2021. Early reports showed an association between vaccine administration and the development of ipsilateral axillary and supraclavicular lymphadenopathy which could interfere with the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of breast cancer patients. In this paper, we review the available evidence on vaccine-related lymphadenopathy, and we discuss the clinical implications of same on breast cancer diagnosis and management.
Methods
A literature search was performed - PubMed, Ovid Medline, Scopus, CINHAL, Springer Nature, Sciencedirect, Academic Search Premiere and the Directory of Open Access Journals were searched for articles reporting on regional palpable or image-detected lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination.
Separately, we compiled a series of case studies from the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, UK and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA to illustrate the impact that regional lymphadenopathy post-COVID-19 vaccination can have on the diagnosis and management of patients being seen in diagnostic and therapeutic breast clinics.
Results
From the literature search 15 studies met the inclusion criteria (n = 2057 patients, 737 with lymphadenopathy). The incidence of lymphadenopathy ranged between 14.5% and 53% and persisted for >6 weeks in 29% of patients.
Conclusions
Clinicians managing breast cancer patients should be aware that the COVID-19 vaccination may result in regional lymphadenopathy in a significant number of patients which can result in unnecessary investigations, treatment and increased patient anxiety. An accurate COVID-19 vaccination history should be collected from all patients where regional lymphadenopathy is a clinical &/or an imaging finding and then combined with clinical judgment when managing individual cases.
Early experience suggests that radiofrequency ablation is a safe, well-tolerated, and minimally invasive therapy for patients with solid renal masses. In the era of nephron-sparing surgery, radiofrequency ablation may have a role in the management of small problematic renal masses.
Introduction: The aim was to compare the accuracy of standard supplementary views and GE digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) for assessment of soft tissue mammographic abnormalities. Methods: Women recalled for further assessment of soft tissue abnormalities were recruited and received standard supplementary views (typically spot compression views) and two-view GE DBT. The added value of DBT in the assessment process was determined by analysing data collected prospectively by unblinded radiologists working up the cases. Following anonymisation of cases, there was also a retrospective multireader review. The readers first read bilateral standard two-view digital mammography (DM) together with the supplementary mammographic views and gave a combined score for suspicion of malignancy on a fivepoint scale. The same readers then read bilateral standard two-view DM together with two-view DBT. Pathology data were obtained. Differences were assessed using ROC analysis. Results: The study population was 342 lesions in 322 patients. Final diagnosis was malignant in 113 cases (33%) and benign/normal in 229 cases (67%). In the prospective analysis, the performance of two-view DM plus DBT was at least equivalent to the performance of two-view DM and standard mammographic supplementary views-area under the curve (AUC) was 0.946 and 0.922 respectively, which did not reach statistical significance. Similar results were obtained for the retrospective review-AUC was 0.900 (DBT) and 0.873 (supplementary views), which did not reach statistical significance. Conclusion: The accuracy of GE DBT in the assessment of screendetected soft tissue abnormalities is equivalent to the use of standard supplementary mammographic views.
How to cite:Please refer to published version for the most recent bibliographic citation information. If a published version is known of, the repository item page linked to above, will contain details on accessing it.
Among women with needle-biopsy-proven positive nodes, around three in four women (78%) with an invasive tumour ≤2 cm and one abnormal node on AUS have two or fewer positive nodes at ALND. These women are overtreated by upfront ALND and can be offered sentinel node biopsy (SNB).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.