Abstract:

Breast calcification plays an important role in breast cancer in various areas, such as early-stage diagnosis, recurrence monitoring and prognosis prediction. However, the mechanism of breast calcifications remains elusive. One proposed mechanism is based on an imbalance between the enhancers and inhibitors of physiological mineralization. Traditionally, the classification of breast calcification is based on the assessment of morphology and distribution. These radiology features are closely related to pathology and biological behavior of tumor. However, chemical composition of calcifications can provide us with more information about tumor status. Calcifications could be divided into two categories according to chemical composition. Type I (calcium oxalate) is found in benign breast disease, while type Ⅱ (hydroxyapatite) is found in proliferative lesions, mostly to be associated with malignancy. Moreover, carbonate concentrations in type Ⅱ calcifications is related to pathology grades. Despite emerging imaging technologies such as digital breast tomosynthesis, they are unable to yield any information on chemical composition of breast calcifications and thus cannot provide a definitive marker for classifying benign and malignant lesions. Recent researches show that using Raman spectroscopy, the chemical information of calcification could be obtained noninvasively and might provide us with a better mode for calcification diagnosis in the future.

Key words: Breast cancer, Calcification, Chemical composition, Diagnosis