Department of General Surgery, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Since needle localization biopsy was introduced, it is widely performed for nonpalpable microcalcified breast lesions, but there are many controversies in determining the disease characteristics and guidelines of the biopsy for microcalcifications detected mammographically in the absence of any palpable mass. This study was designed to detennine the breast cancers according to microcalcification types.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We reviewed 91 patients, who underwent breast biopsies between January 1995 and June 1998 for only microcalcified lesions detected by mammography at the Department of Surgery, Korea University Hospitals.
Microcalcifications were defined as calcifications less than 1.0 mm. The needle localization biopsy was performed only on patients who were found to have five or more microcalcifications. We classified the mictocalcifications into three types; casting type, crushed-stone-like type, and amorphous type.
RESULTS: The mean age was 49 years (25 82 years). Sixteen patients (17.6%) among the 91 patients were diagnosed with the breast cancer; four (22.2%) of 18 patients with casting type, eight (21.6%) of 37 patients with crushed-stone-like type, and four (11.1%) of 36 patients with amorphous type microcalcifications. Breast cancers were more prevalent in casting and crushed-stone-like types than in amorphous types. There was no difference in the size of microcalcifiations between benign and malignant lesions 13.11+-10.89 rnm vs 13.13+-9.51 mm.
CONCLUSIONS: The patients who have more than 5 microcalcifications clustered within 1 cm circle detected at mammographic evaluation, especially in case of casting or crushed-stone-like type, should be advised to have localization biopsy to detect early breast cancer.
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