[Combined diagnosis of breast cancer recurrences after conservative treatment. Critical review of 143 consecutive cases].

The diagnostic features are reported of 143 consecutive patients with breast cancer intramammary recurrences observed after conservative treatment, 1984 to 1994. Disease-free interval after surgery was 3.7 years on the average, being longer for the patients receiving postoperative breast irradiation (3.9 vs 3.1 years). The conserved breast was followed-up on a regular basis with palpation and mammography, whereas US and cytology were used only in selected suspicious cases. Palpation, mammography, cytology or US suspected the recurrence in 75, 64, 81 and 77% of cases, respectively. Mammographic false negatives were not explained by breast parenchymal density (Wolfe's pattern) or by breast irradiation, but were likely to be ascribed to the masking effect of surgical scars and distortion. Most failures at cytology were caused by inadequate sampling: when sampling was adequate, cytology exhibited the highest sensitivity (97%). In all, combined palpation + mammography, palpation + cytology and palpation + mammography + cytology diagnosed correctly 97, 98 and 100% of cases, respectively. Palpation should be always combined with mammography in the follow-up of the conserved breast, but US and aspiration cytology should be performed in case of any clinico-radiologic abnormality carrying even a minimal risk of recurrence.