Frequency, characteristics, type of lesions and follow-up of Byrds 3 lesions in full digital mammography in the breast clinic of Cancer Institute during one year

Abstract

BI-RADS-3 is a category in mammography for probably benign lesions and for which periodic fallow-up with repeat imaging is recommended. A lesion designated as BI-RADS-3 should have less than a 2% chance of becoming malignancy. With this study we evaluated the frequency of BI-RADS-3 lesions in mammography reports of Cancer Institute of Tehran university of medical science during 1 year, September 2016 to September 2017, their lesion types (microcalcification, mass, asymmetry) and the recommended fallow ups. Of 5972 mammograms reviewed over a 1-year period between September 2016 to September 2017 a total of 481 were diagnosed as BI-RADS-3. (8%) All of them were  recommended to come back for short term fallow up. (6 month or 1 year later) Most of these patients were lost to fallow up, leaving 71 patients. (14%) Of these 71 lesions, 29.6% were masses, 25.4% microcalcifications and 42.3% were asymmetries, which was more frequent. Of 71 lesions, 24 (33.8%) remained stable, 10 lesions had an upgrade in their BI-RADS status (14.1%) and the majority of them (47.9%) had a decrease in their BI-RADS status. Of 71 lesions, 10 had changes prompting biopsy. We had access to 9 of these biopsy  documents.3 cancer (4.2%) and 6 benign lesions was detected and the malignancy rate in our  study was 4.2% which is more than 2%.