Identification of patients: Staging of breast cancer patients with FDG-PET/CT-scans
tumors, breast cancer
STAGE II BREAST CANCER, TUMORS, BREAST CANCER
From our interviews, we received indications that staging with FDG-PET/CT scans for breast cancer patients with lymph node positive or tumors larger than 5 cm may not have been performed as standard of care in all hospitals in the Netherlands. In recent history, guidelines for adjuvant systemic treatment made no distinction between stage II or stage III breast cancer, due to a lack of personalized treatments and companion diagnostics. However, developments in the treatment of BRCA1-like and macrometastatic (N +) breast cancer patients indicate that accurate staging is necessary. Omitting FGD PET/CT scans during staging may sometimes lead to understaging [