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OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the association of different patterns of breast edema and clinical-pathological features and axillary lymph node (ALN) status in early invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) for simple and readily available assessment and to guide surgeons to perform sentinel lymph node biopsy for selected patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective analysis involved 207 individuals with clinical T1-T2 stage IDC. The clinical-pathological features of the patients were compared with different breast edema and ALN statuses. Independent risk factors for ALN metastasis were verified using multivariate logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: ALN metastasis was confirmed in 100 of 207 patients (48.3%) with early-stage IDC. Significant differences were found between different ALN states for tumour size, clinical T stage, and breast edema (P <0.05). The clinical T2 stage (odds ratio-1.882, p=0.043) and moderate to severe edema (odds ratio-10.869, p=0.004) were independent risk factors for ALN metastasis. Moreover, better prognostic factors, including smaller tumour size, lower Ki-67 index and histologic grade, luminal A subtype, and lower incidence of lymph node metastasis, were more frequently found in patients with no breast edema (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Breast edema can be considered a promising feature to improve the predictive performance of pathological ALN status in patients with early-stage breast cancer and thus may contribute to preoperative treatment planning.
RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: The relatively long scan time has hampered the clinical use of whole-heart noncontrast coronary magnetic resonance angiography (NCMRA). The compressed sensitivity encoding (SENSE) technique, also known as the CS technique, has been found to improve scan times. This study aimed to identify the optimal CS acceleration factor for NCMRA. METHODS: Thirty-six participants underwent four NCMRA sequences: three sequences using the CS technique with acceleration factors of 4, 5, and 6, and one sequence using the conventional SENSE technique with the acceleration factor of 2. Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) was considered as a reference sequence. The acquisition times of the four NCMRA sequences were assessed. The correlation and agreement between the visible vessel lengths obtained via CCTA and NCMRA were also assessed. The image quality scores and contrast ratio (CR) of eight coronary artery segments from the four NCMRA sequences were quantitatively evaluated. RESULTS: The mean acquisition time of the conventional SENSE was 343 s, while that of CS4, CS5, and CS6 was 269, 215, and 190 s, respectively. The visible vessel length from the CS4 sequence showed good correlation and agreement with CCTA. The image quality score and CR from the CS4 sequence were not statistically significantly different from those in the other groups (p > 0.05). Moreover, the image score and CR showed a decreasing trend with the increase in the CS factor. CONCLUSIONS: The CS technique could significantly shorten the acquisition time of NCMRA. The CS sequence with an acceleration factor of 4 was generally acceptable for NCMRA in clinical settings to balance the image quality and acquisition time.
