Breast Cancer - Arab Medical Association Against Cancer

Prognostic Factors 203B- Pathological factors1. The anatomic sizeTumor size reflects the natural history of the cancer. When tumor size increases, the rate ofmetastases increases. The size can be evaluated by clinical examination, radiologic imagingand by pathologic analysis; the anatomical size has been the reference. For the radiologicimaging, the size determined by ultra sound has a better correlation to the anatomical one.The MRI, thanks to contrast taking, brings an excellent, more sensitive, evaluation, butdisturbed by taking non specific contrast of benign lesions or of normal breast according tothe time during the cycle.The anatomic size is measured on the surgical specimen and represents the largest diameterof the tumor including the fine satellite spicules. The 5-year disease free survival rate is lessthan 60% in tumors larger than 25 mm, while it is more than 75% in smaller tumors (p