Cancer in pregnancy: breast cancer

Soudabeh Fazeli1, Michelle Sakala2, Rebecca Rakow-Penner3

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

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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