Research Information System
ARCHIVES OF BREAST CANCER, vol.10, no.2, pp.124-130, 2023 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the value of pre-treatment
dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) findings in predicting clinical and
radiological response to treatment in patients with idiopathic granulomatous mastitis
(IGM) receiving steroid therapy and to compare clinical and DCE-MRI results after
treatment.
Methods: Pre- and post-treatment MRI examinations of 86 patients (with a mean
age of 33.8 years; range, 20–57 years) diagnosed with IGM between January 2014
and September 2022 were retrospectively evaluated. Lesion characteristics and
longest diameter, number of involved quadrants, retroareolar involvement, and
presence of fistula or lymphadenopathy were noted. Patients were categorized into
clinical complete response (CCR), clinical non-response (CNR) groups based on
clinical response and into radiological complete response (RCR) and radiological
non-response (RNR) groups based on radiological response.
Results: The analyses revealed no relationship between the lesion type (abscess,
NME, abscess, and NME), presence of lymphadenopathy or fistula, number of
involved quadrants, retroareolar involvement, and treatment response on pretreatment MRI (P>0.05). The longest lesion diameter was smaller in the CCR group
than in the CNR group (P = 0.02). After treatment, 40.7% (35/86) of the patients
achieved RCR + CCR, while 16.3% (14/86) achieved RNR + CNR. On the other
hand, 43% (37/86) of the patients achieved CCR + RNR.
Conclusion: CCR is more common in patients with smaller lesions. Other pretreatment MRI findings were not correlated with radiological or clinical response. A
significant proportion of patients with CCR had residual lesions radiologically