Dear Women's Imaging Insider,
Data from the literature show women who previously had breast cancer are not "long-term breast cancer survivors." In fact, they still have an intermediate risk of breast cancer -- not as high as BRCA1/2 mutation carriers, but with a risk higher than women with no previous breast cancer and no relevant family history.
With this in mind, don't miss the new recommendations from two Italian medical societies on how to follow up these women.
The European Society of Breast Imaging annual meeting concluded in Paris on Saturday, and we have two stories on breast MRI worth checking out. In the first, a survey finds breast indications for MRI differ vastly across Europe, but techniques are closer to U.S. practice than anticipated. What does that mean exactly? Find out.
In the second article, breast imaging pioneer Dr. Christiane Kuhl discusses how false positives on breast MRI can be valuable. "Over recent years, the allegedly limited specificity of breast MRI has been refuted by data, which confirm that the positive predictive value of MRI is as high as that of mammography," she said. "Moreover, even though MRI and mammography can cause 'false-positive' diagnoses, we found the prognostic implications of false-positive diagnoses in mammography and MRI may not be equivalent." Read more.
Also in your Women's Imaging Community, women appear to tolerate iron toxicity better than men, perhaps due to the effect of reduced sensitivity to chronic oxidative stress, and female thalassemia patients only require follow-up every two years, according to a large Italian study.
What happens to the heart when a breast cancer patient undergoes radiotherapy (RT)? The answer has been unclear, until now. Finnish researchers found radiotherapy induced regional changes corresponding to the RT fields.
Have you ever wondered how to manage female genital malformations? Wonder no longer -- researchers from Spain discuss abnormalities such as uterine duplicity and hypoplasia of a urogenital ridge. These types of abnormalities can be associated with a range of gynecological and obstetric problems, and diagnostic imaging for all these anomalies is essential.
Last but not least, we have an article about the Zika infection. Radiologists reviewing scans of babies and fetuses in cases of suspected Zika infection can expect to see a number of telltale brain abnormalities, including loss of gray- and white-matter volume and a "collapsed" appearance of the skull. What else to look for? Discover more.
Be sure to head on over to the Women's Imaging Community for more women's imaging news or scroll below this message. As always, I enjoy hearing from you, so contact me anytime.
