La Radiologia medica
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La Radiologia medica · Dec 2019
Observational StudyUsefulness of preoperative breast magnetic resonance imaging with a dedicated axillary sequence for the detection of axillary lymph node metastasis in patients with early ductal breast cancer.
Axillary staging of primary breast cancer is important; however, axillary staging using advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques is very difficult to use. Therefore, we want to evaluate the diagnostic performance of preoperative MRI with a dedicated axillary sequence for axillary lymph node (ALN) metastasis in patients with early ductal breast cancer and determine potential predictors of axillary nodal positivity. ⋯ Our findings suggest that preoperative axial + reconstructed coronal MR images exhibit good diagnostic performance for ALN metastasis in patients with early ductal breast cancer. In addition, peritumoral high signal intensity on T2-weighted images of the primary tumor can be used as a predictor of ALN metastasis in these patients.