(Reuters) – applying ultrasound to annual mammograms for women with higher than average risk of developing breast cancer helps detect tumors in the initial stages, but also increases the chances of making unnecessary biopsies to healthy patients, according to an American study reveals.
For the majority of women that fall within the category of “intermediate risk”, including those with higher breast density or a family history of breast cancer, the extra possibility of false positive and you need more evidence probably worth it, said the author of the study, Wendie Berg, of the women Magee Hospital in Pittsburgh
This is due to, for example, mammograms not function as well in those women with higher breast density.
“The vast majority (…)” “women are very aware of these risks choose welcome perform an ultrasound, knowing that this increases the possibility of finding cancer if it is present and do so before”, said Berg on the study, which is published in Journal of the American Medical Association.
The recommendations of oncological and radiological institutions urge women at risk of developing cancer, including those with the genetic mutations BRCA1 and BRCA2, to make a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in addition to annual mammography.
But guidelines do not specify if additional tests are also the best choice for those who fall into the category of intermediate risk, which would include up to 30 percent of women.
Berg said that do annual MRI in women is not a too practical alternative nor profitable, and that many people would feel claustrophobic during the procedure or simply don’t like.
For this reason, the author and his colleagues wanted to see if ultrasound – or ultrasound-which are less cumbersome and less expensive, would be an alternative to add to mammography.
His study involved about 2,700 women in 21 different places. More than half of these patients had a history of breast cancer, also classified as intermediate risk.
Annually and for three years, women were both a mammogram and an ultrasound in search of signs of cancer. Finally, the researchers offered participants an MRI as a last test.
During the study period, there were 111 new cases of breast cancer, 59 of which were detected with mammograms. Other 32 tumors that had not appeared on mammograms were found with ultrasound, of whom 30 were invasive cancers.
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Women who opted for an MRI, emerged nine cancers that had not appeared in other tests of control. Eleven tumors were diagnosed at some point in the study through other means outside controls.
. Despite to detect additional cancers, there were disadvantages in additional tests. One in 20 women had to perform a biopsy breast due to the results of the ultrasound, although only a small fraction of those patients ended up taking cancer.
“Always are in a dilemma because we do not know what to do with these intermediate-risk patients,” said Regina Hooley, who studies the control of breast cancer at the Yale School of medicine, but did not participate in the study.
“MRI is expensive and invasive.” “I think (that ultrasound) is actually an alternative very, very good for these patients and would probably recommend them that an ultrasound be performed”, added.
However, Susan Roth, radióloga of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, said that the rate of false positive of ultrasound is worrying.
For women with normal risk of developing breast cancer, the American Group U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says that the evidence supported the realization only controls mammary, every two years, between 50 and 74 years.
