Breast parenchymal density: does it affect oncological and surgical outcomes in conventional lumpectomy and oncoplastic surgery?

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Mammographic breast density (MBD) has been investigated as a risk factor for many years and has been determined to increase the risk of breast cancer in many studies. Research has shown that the correlation between MBD with breast cancer as both a risk factor and a prognostic factor is not limited to difficulty in diagnosis and patient age. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of MBD on the surgical effectiveness of different techniques applied for breast-conserving surgery (BCS).

METHODS: We investigated the data of 460 patients who were prospectively registered in the database of the center between 2007-2017 and who were treated with level II Oncoplastic surgery (OPS) and conventional lumpectomy due to invasive breast cancer.

RESULTS: BCS was applied to 223 (48.5%) patients, and OPS was applied to 237 (51.5%) patients. 213 (46.3%) patients had fatty breast density, and 247 (53.7%) had dense breasts. Mean surgical margin was 11.01 mm in the OPS group and 9.17 mm in the BCS group, with a statistically larger surgical margin in the OPS group (p=0.011).

Regarding the surgical margin, mean distances were 10.59 mm infatty breasts and 9.70 mm in dense breasts.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: In the present study, increased MBD was found to be associated with closer surgical margins and increased reoperation rates, albeit with a reduced risk for late complications. We think that level II OPS can eliminate this handicap in terms of surgical margin and reoperation in dense breasts.