Breast calcification plays a major role in breast cancer：form radiology assessment to chemical composition analysis / 中国癌症杂志

ABSTRACT

Breast calciifcation plays an important role in breast cancer in various areas, such as early-stage diagnosis, recurrence monitoring and prognosis prediction. However, the mechanism of breast calciifcations remains elusive. One proposed mechanism is based on an imbalance between the enhancers and inhibitors of physiological mineralization. Traditionally, the classiifcation of breast calciifcation is based on the assessment of morphology and distribution. These radiology features are closely related to pathology and biological behavior of tumor. However, chemical composition of calciifcations can provide us with more information about tumor status. Calciifcations could be divided into two categories according to chemical composition. Type I (calcium oxalate) is found in benign breast disease, while typeⅡ (hydroxyapatite) is found in proliferative lesions, mostly to be associated with malignancy. Moreover, carbonate concentrations in typeⅡ calciifcations is related to pathology grades. Despite emerging imaging technologies such as digital breast tomosynthesis, they are unable to yield any information on chemical composition of breast calciifcations and thus cannot provide a deifnitive marker for classifying benign and malignant lesions. Recent researches show that using Raman spectroscopy, the chemical information of calcification could be obtained non-invasively and might provide us with a better mode for calciifcation diagnosis in the future.