Breast cancer in women younger than 35 years old: Correlation of MRI findings with clinicopathological features and immunohistochemical subtypes

Breast cancer of young women shows poor prognosis, but the imaging findings has not been well known. We evaluated the MRI characteristics of young women. From January 2009 to December 2013, we included 91 patients under the age of 35 who were diagnosed histologically as breast cancer and underwent MRI. The relationship between the clinical and histopathological prognostic factors was obtained using electronic medical records and the retrospective analysis of MRI findings was statistically analyzed. The most common imaging findings of breast mass were irregular shape (53.7%), irregular margin (53.7%), heterogeneous enhancement (53.8%), and type 3 kinetic curve pattern (57.1%). In the multivariate analysis, the rim enhancement was significantly related to the higher tissue grade (p = 0.001), estrogen receptor negative (p < 0.001), and progesterone receptor negative (p < 0.001). The irregular mass shape (p = 0.015) and type 3 kinetic curve (p = 0.002) were related to lymph node metastasis. MRI findings of breast cancer in young women (≤ 35-years-old) are not different from those of general breast cancer, but the rim enhancement, irregular mass shape and type 3 kinetic curve are related with pathologic factors of poor prognosis