The Value of magnetic resonance imaging for the assessment of the residual breast tumor after neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Introduction: Breast cancer is the second most common women oncologic disease in Lithuania, leading to most deaths due to oncological diseases. Treatment of locally advanced breast cancer usually is started with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Further self-determination for the surgical treatment strongly depends on the breast imaging, especially magnetic resonance. Aim of the study: To evaluate magnetic resonance imaging accuracy for residual breast tumor size assessment after neoadjuvant chemotherapy treatment. Material and methods: A retrospective study of breast cancer patients with locally advanced disease treated in 2013-2016 in Hospital of LUHS Kauno Klinikos was carried out. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings after neoadjuvant chemotherapy were compared to the results of histopathological analysis. Non-operated patients were excluded from the study. Information about the patient's age, MRI, core biopsy and final pathological examinations results were collected. For the statistical analysis statistical software packages Excel for Windows 2007 and 20.00 SPSS were used. Descriptive statistics with absolute and the percentage frequency distribution was used to evaluate the serial distribution of the selected sample. Differencies between the groups based on the chi-square test and Spearman's correlation coefficient were calculated. The relationship between the variables are considered to be statistically significant when p