Increased Malignant Microcalcifications after Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Advanced Breast Cancer

Abstract

In patients with advanced breast cancer, most new calcifications detected on a mammogram after neoadjuvant chemotherapy are benign dystrophic calcifications, but this is not always observed. We present a patient with advanced breast cancer who had paradoxically increased malignant microcalcifications concomitant with primary tumor regression after undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy. After the neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the follow-up mammogram revealed that local, fine pleomorphic microcalcifications had markedly increased. Pathologically, these calcifications were ductal carcinoma in situ. We concluded that, in patients with breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy, newly developed microcalcifications on follow-up mammograms should be carefully evaluated, and any suspicious malignant microcalcifications should be included in surgical excision planning.

A Brief Review about the Role of Nanomaterials, Mineral-Organic Nanoparticles, and Extra-Bone Calcification in Promoting Carcinogenesis and Tumor Progression

“…There are two types of extra-bone calcification, a metastatic form associated with hypercalcemia and a metabolic form caused by metabolic disorders in tissues. Metabolic calcification is observed in atrophic, dystrophic, dysplastic, and necrobiotic changes in tissues, as well as in benign and malignant tumors [148,149,150]. In malignant neoplasms, micro and macrocalcinates have been detected in cancers of the breast, the kidney, and the thyroid, as well as in some other tumors [148,149,150,151,152,153].…”