Relative value of physical examination, mammography, and breast sonography in evaluating the size of the primary tumor and regional lymph node metastases in women receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced breast carcinoma.

The purpose of this study was to correlate physical examination and sonographic and mammographic measurements of breast tumors and regional lymph nodes with pathological findings and to evaluate the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on clinical Tumor-Node-Metastasis stage by noninvasive methods. This was a retrospective analysis of 100 patients with locally advanced breast cancer registered and treated in prospective trials of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. All patients received four cycles of a doxorubicin-containing regimen and had noninvasive evaluation of the primary tumor and regional lymph nodes before and after neoadjuvant chemotherapy by physical examination, sonography, and mammography and underwent breast surgery and axillary dissection within 5 weeks after completion of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The correlations between clinical and pathological measurements were determined by Spearman rank correlation analysis. A proportional odds model was used to examine predictive values. Eighty-three patients had both a clinically detectable primary tumor and lymph node metastases. Sixty-four patients had a decrease in Tumor-Node-Metastasis stage after chemotherapy. For 54% of patients, there was concordance in clinical response between the primary tumor and lymph node compartment; for the rest, results were discordant. Physical examination correlated best with pathological findings in the measurement of the primary tumor (P = 0.0003), whereas sonography was the most accurate predictor of size for axillary lymph nodes (P = 0.0005). The combination of physical examination and mammography worked best for assessment of the primary tumor (P = 0.003), whereas combining physical examination with sonography gave optimal evaluation of regional lymph nodes (P = 0.0001). In conclusion, physical examination is the best noninvasive predictor of the real size of locally advanced primary breast cancer, whereas sonography correlates better with the real dimensions of axillary lymph nodes. The combination of physical examination with either mammography or sonography significantly improves the accuracy of noninvasive assessment of tumor dimensions.