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Do you treat early stage multifocal breast cancer similarly to single site lesion?

How does it affect your calculation of risk stratification?
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How does the presence of multifocal disease in early-stage breast cancer influence your treatment approach and risk stratification?

40 physicians have voted

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1 Answer
Mednet MemberInvited Expert
Medical Oncology · University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute
Answered on

Anatomic staging of multifocal disease is based on the largest lesion. Various investigators have examined prognostic implications of multifocality or multicentricity and have generally concluded that the current system of staging is still most appropriate, but that the presence of more than one tumor in the breast does have some effect on prognosis (e.g., Hilton et al., PMID 24113743).

In most multifocal tumors, the cancers are all of the same subtype. Rarely, one of the tumors will have a diff...

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