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Background/Objectives: High breast density is a risk factor for breast cancer and can reduce the sensitivity of mammography. Given the influence of breast density on patient risk stratification and screening accuracy, it is crucial to monitor the prevalence of extremely dense breasts within local populations. Moreover, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding regarding breast density prevalence in Switzerland. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of breast density in a selected Swiss population. Methods: To overcome the potential variability in breast density classifications by human readers, this study utilized commercially available deep convolutional neural network breast classification software. A retrospective analysis of mammographic images of women aged 40 years and older was performed. Results: A total of 4698 mammograms from women (58 ± 11 years) were included in this study. The highest prevalence of breast density was in category C (heterogeneously dense), which was observed in 41.5% of the cases. This was followed by category B (scattered areas of fibroglandular tissue), which accounted for 22.5%. Conclusions: Notably, extremely dense breasts (category D) were significantly more common in younger women, with a prevalence of 34%. However, this rate dropped sharply to less than 10% in women over 55 years of age.

Background: Whereas specimen radiography (SR) is an established strategy for intraoperative resection margin analysis during breast-conserving surgery for nonpalpable lesions, the use of frozen section analysis (FSA) is still a matter of debate., Methods: A retrospective review was conducted of 115 consecutive operations in which the two objectives sought were the excision of nonpalpable malignant lesions and breast conservation. Breast surgery was performed in the Gynecology and the Surgery Departments at the Basel University Hospital Breast Center. Whereas one department preferably uses SR for intraoperative margin assessments of lesions involving ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) or atypical ductal hyperplasia, the other uses FSA to increase the rate of complete removal of these lesions with a single procedure. The respective accuracy and therapeutic impact of these two techniques are compared here., Results: Intraoperative resection margin assessments were performed with FSA in 80 and SR in 35 of a total of 115 operations performed on 111 patients with pTis, pT1, or pT2 nonpalpable breast cancer. FSA diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity were 83.8%, 80.0%, and 87.5%, respectively, compared to 60%, 60%, and 60%, respectively, for SR. FSA tended to have a stronger therapeutic impact than SR in terms of the number of patients in whom initially positive margins were rendered margin-negative thanks to intraoperative analysis and immediate reexcision or mastectomy (27.5% vs. 14.3%; p = 0.124). More importantly, significantly fewer secondary reexcisions were performed in the FSA series than in the SR series (12.5% vs. 37.1%; p = 0.002). Finally, the intraoperative detection of invasive cancer with FSA led to a significantly lower number of secondary procedures for axillary lymph node staging (5% vs. 25.7%; p = 0.001)., Conclusions: The present results suggest that FSA may be more accurate than SR for analyzing intraoperative resection margins during breast-conserving surgery for nonpalpable lesions.

In the industrialised countries breast cancer is the cancer with the highest prevalence and causes the highest rate of cancer deaths among women. In Switzerland alone, about 5000 newly diagnosed cases occur per year. Our three main diagnostic tools in imaging diseases of the breast in the setting of screening, early detection or problem solving are mammography, ultrasound and MRI with intravenous contrast application. The most important imaging technique is mammography, which as only method has shown evidence to be suitable for screening so far. As a major accomplishing imaging tool there is sonography, which in women under 30 years of age is the first method of choice in examination of the breasts. The MRI is able to provide additional information about the perfusion of tissue changes within the breast; because of its low specificity, however, it should cautiously be applied for specific questions.

Background: This study investigates to what extent tumor detection methods in breast cancer have changed and how this has influenced tumor size at initial diagnosis., Methods: 1054 breast carcinomas < or =5 cm, newly diagnosed between 1990 and 2006, were evaluated for the tumor detection methods used, namely self-detection (SD, n=568), clinical breast examination (CBE, n=212), and radiological breast examination (RBE, n=237), and their corresponding tumor sizes., Results: During the study period, the proportion of cases found by RBE increased (p<0.001), while median tumor size decreased (1990-1992: 22 mm; 2005/2006: 17 mm. Spearman rho=-0.12, p<0.001). Nevertheless, SD remained the most frequent method of tumor identification (2005/2006: 48.9%). Carcinomas found by RBE were smaller (median size: 12 mm) than those found by the other two detection forms (SD: 21 mm, CBE: 21 mm; p<0.001). Within the different methods, only in RBE was an appreciable decrease in the size of the detected tumors observed during the study period (Spearman rho=-0.14, p<0.001; SD: Spearman rho=-0.05, p=0.19; CBE: Spearman rho=-0.05, p=0.43)., Conclusion: Despite educational campaigns and high media coverage, the possibilities for improving the "classical" methods of tumor detection in breast cancer, self-detection and clinical breast examination, seem to be at their limit. The significant decrease in tumor size at time of detection observed in the last years is primarily only due to the increased use of breast imaging. Improved detection of smaller tumors may presumably be reached only by an increased use of radiological procedures.