title: Preoperative staging of primary breast cancer. A multicentric study.
abstract: This article reports on a consecutive series of 3627 breast cancer (BC) patients undergoing preoperative staging by chest x-ray (CXR), bone x-ray (BXR) or bone scintigraphy (BS), and liver ecography (LE) or liver scintigraphy (LS). The detection rate (DR) of preclinical asymptomatic distant metastases depended on the T and N category (TNM classification system), and was very low (CXR: 0.30%, BXR: 0.64%, BS: 0.90%, LE: 0.24%, LS: 0.23%). The sensitivity, determined after a 6-month follow-up, was below 0.50% for all tests. The highest value (0.48%) was recorded for BS, which also had the lowest specificity (0.95%). The entire preoperative staging policy using the studied tests seems questionable due to poor sensitivity and an extremely low DR of distant metastases.
authors.affiliation: Centro per lo Studio e la Prevenzione Oncologica, Firenze, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ciatto
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pacini
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Azzini
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Neri
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jannini
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gosso
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Molino
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Capelli
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: di Costanzo
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Pucciatti
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000175:diagnosis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011300:Preoperative Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies