DWI may identify biological heterogeneity of breast neoplasms. • ADC values vary significantly according to biological features of breast cancer. • Compared with other types, HER2-enriched tumours show highest median ADC value. • Knowledge of biological heterogeneity of breast neoplasm may improve imaging interpretation.

Background: Breast cancer (BC) subtypes have different survival and response to therapy. We studied predictors of central nervous system metastases (CNS-M) and outcome after CNS-M diagnosis according to tumor subtype.

Background. Human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER)-2 testing in patients with operable breast cancer is aimed at identifying candidates for adjuvant anti-HER-2 treatment. However, commonly defined "HER-2 ؊ " tumors express variable levels of the HER-2 protein, which can influence prognosis. We compared the clinical outcomes of operable breast cancer patients stratified according to a common HER-2 testing algorithm.Methods. We studied 1,150 women (median age, 58 years; range, 22-94 years) undergoing surgery for early breast cancer at our institution. HER-2 status was determined using the HercepTest™ (Dako, Glostrup, Denmark) and, when needed, by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Patients receiving adjuvant trastuzumab were excluded. The impact of HER-2 status on the disease-free survival (DFS) time was studied using multivariate Cox proportional regression analysis.

Abstract

We studied whether dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) could identify histopathological characteristics of breast cancer. Seventy-five patients with breast cancer underwent DCE-MRI followed by core biopsy. DCE-MRI findings were evaluated following the scoring system published by Fischer in 1999. In this scoring system, five DCE-MRI features, three morphological (shape, margins, enhancement kinetic) and two functional (initial peak of signal intensity (SI) increase and behavior of signal intensity curve), are defined by 14 parameters. Each parameter is assigned points ranging from 0 to 1 or 0 to 2, with higher points for those that are more likely to be associated with malignancy. The sum of all the points defines the degree of suspicion of malignancy, with a score 0 representing the lowest and 8 the highest degree of suspicion. Associations between DCE-MRI features and tumor histopathological characteristics assessed on core biopsies (histological type, grading, estrogen and progesterone receptor status, Ki67 and HER2 status) were studied by contingency tables and logistic regression analysis. We found a significant inverse association between the Fischer's score and HER2-overexpression (odds ratio-OR 0.608, p = 0.02). Based on our results, we suggest that lesions with intermediate-low suspicious DCE-MRI parameters may represent a subset of tumor with poor histopathological characteristics.