An Evaluation of the Roentgen Diagnosis of Early Carcinoma of the Breast

An accurate roentgen diagnosis of any breast lesion based on recognition of morbid anatomic change presumes familiarity with the normal anatomic roentgen appearances. In a recent report of the normal breast we¹indicated some limitations of the roentgen examination in such borderline pathologic states as mazoplasia, cystiphorous desquamative epithelial hyperplasia, epitheliosis and adenosis. Since the roentgenologist can attain little more accuracy than the pathologist, if limited to a macroscopic examination in making conclusive diagnoses of breast lesions, claims made for the roentgen studies inferring accuracy akin to the pathologist's microscopic studies must be carefully analyzed. This is well exemplified in those cases of fibro-adenomas of the puberal period when clinically, roentgenographically and macroscopically a diagnosis of neoplasia is agreed on only to be controverted by the microscopic finding of simple hyperplasia.²While it is difficult to credit some of the recent enthusiastic reports on the roentgen examination of