Background: The multifocality and multicentrality of breast cancer (MFMCC) are the significant aspects that determine a specialist’s choice between applying breast-conserving therapy (BCT) or performing a mastectomy. This study aimed to assess the usefulness of mammography (MG), contrast-enhanced spectral mammography (CESM), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in women diagnosed with breast cancer before qualifying for surgical intervention to visualize other (additional) cancer foci. Methods: The study included 60 breast cancer cases out of 630 patients initially who underwent surgery due to breast cancer from January 2015 to April 2019. MG, CESM, and MRI were compared with each other in terms of the presence of MFMCC and assessed for compliance with the postoperative histopathological examination (HP). Results: Histopathological examination confirmed the presence of MFMCC in 33/60 (55%) patients. The sensitivity of MG in detecting MFMCC was 50%, and its specificity was 95.83%. For CESM, the sensitivity was 85.29%, and the specificity was 96.15%. For MRI, all the above-mentioned parameters were higher as follows: sensitivity—91.18%; specificity—92.31%. Conclusions: In patients with MFMCC, both CESM and MRI are highly sensitive in the detection of additional cancer foci. Both CESM and MRI change the extent of surgical intervention in every fourth patient.

Contrast-enhanced spectral mammography (CESM) is a promising, digital breast imaging method for planning surgeries. The study aimed at comparing digital mammography (MG) with CESM as predictive factors in visualizing multifocal-multicentric cancers (MFMCC) before determining the surgery extent. We analyzed 999 patients after breast cancer surgery to compare MG and CESM in terms of detecting MFMCC. Moreover, these procedures were assessed for their conformity with postoperative histopathology (HP), calculating their sensitivity and specificity. The question was which histopathological types of breast cancer were more frequently characterized by multifocality–multicentrality in comparable techniques as regards the general number of HP-identified cancers. The analysis involved the frequency of post-CESM changes in the extent of planned surgeries. In the present study, MG revealed 48 (4.80%) while CESM 170 (17.02%) MFMCC lesions, subsequently confirmed in HP. MG had MFMCC detecting sensitivity of 38.51%, specificity 99.01%, PPV (positive predictive value) 85.71%, and NPV (negative predictive value) 84.52%. The respective values for CESM were 87.63%, 94.90%, 80.57% and 96.95%. Moreover, no statistically significant differences were found between lobular and NST cancers (27.78% vs. 21.24%) regarding MFMCC. A treatment change was required by 20.00% of the patients from breast-conserving to mastectomy, upon visualizing MFMCC in CESM. In conclusion, mammography offers insufficient diagnostic sensitivity for detecting additional cancer foci. The high diagnostic sensitivity of CESM effectively assesses breast cancer multifocality/multicentrality and significantly changes the extent of planned surgeries. The multifocality/multicentrality concerned carcinoma, lobular and invasive carcinoma of no special type (NST) cancers with similar incidence rates, which requires further confirmation.

Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) recombinant images in detecting malignant lesions in patients with extremely dense breasts compared to the all-densities population.Material and methods: 792 patients with 808 breast lesions, in whom the final decision on core-needle biopsy was made based on CEM, and who received the result of histopathological examination, were qualified for a single-centre, retrospective study. Patient electronic records and imaging examinations were reviewed to establish demographics, clinical and imaging findings, and histopathology results. The CEM images were reassessed and assigned to the appropriate American College of Radiology (ACR) density categories.Results: Extremely dense breasts were present in 86 (10.9%) patients. Histopathological examination confirmed the presence of malignant lesions in 52.6% of cases in the entire group of patients and 43% in the group of extremely dense breasts. CEM incorrectly classified the lesion as false negative in 16/425 (3.8%) cases for the whole group, and in 1/37 (2.7%) cases for extremely dense breasts. The sensitivity of CEM for the group of all patients was 96.2%, speci­ficity – 60%, positive predictive values (PPV) – 72.8%, and negative predictive values (NPV) – 93.5%. In the group of patients with extremely dense breasts, the sensitivity of the method was 97.3%, specificity – 59.2%, PPV – 64.3%, and NPV – 96.7%.Conclusions: CEM is characterised by high sensitivity and NPV in detecting malignant lesions regardless of the type of breast density. In patients with extremely dense breasts, CEM could serve as a complementary or additional examination in the absence or low availability of MRI.