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Cancer in pregnancy: breast cancer

  • Special Section: Cancer in Pregnancy
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Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women, and for women under 40, it is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. A specific type of breast cancer is pregnancy-associated breast cancer, which is diagnosed during pregnancy, the first-year postpartum, or during lactation. Pregnancy-associated breast cancer is seen in 3/1000 pregnancies and is increasing in incidence as women delay pregnancy. This type of breast cancer is more aggressive, and not infrequently, there is a delay in diagnosis attributed to physiologic changes that occur during pregnancy and a lack of awareness among physicians. In this review, we discuss the demographics of pregnancy-associated breast cancer, provide differential considerations, and illustrate the multimodality imaging features to bring attention to the radiologist about this aggressive form of breast cancer.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to Summer Batasin for her help in editing final manuscript.

Funding

Financial interests. HOF is a consultant to ViewPoint Medical and IBM Watson, holds stock options in CureMetrix, and has received a speaker honorarium from Efficiency Learning Systems, Oakstone CME, and Educational Symposia. RRP is a consultant for Human Longevity Inc. consultant and consulting fee, has GE Healthcare research agreement, Efficiency Learning Systems and Educational Symposia honorarium, Cortech Labs stock options and advisory board, Curemetrix stock options and consultant, Imagine Scientific SBIR grant. Non-financial interests. HOF is an unpaid member of the committee ACR practice parameters breast imaging and SBI Inclusion Diversity Equity Alliance. SF and MS have no financial disclosures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Division of Breast Imaging, UC San Diego Health, 9400 Campus Point Dr., La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA

    Soudabeh Fazeli & Haydee Ojeda-Fournier

  2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Michelle Sakala

  3. Department of Radiology, Division of Breast Imaging and Body Imaging, UC San Diego Health, 9400 Campus Point Dr., La Jolla, CA, USA

    Rebecca Rakow-Penner

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Fazeli, S., Sakala, M., Rakow-Penner, R. et al. Cancer in pregnancy: breast cancer. Abdom Radiol 48, 1645–1662 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00261-023-03824-1

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