Indications for and limits of conservative surgery in breast cancer

Improvements in diagnostic techniques and, above all, breast cancer screening campaigns - essential for early diagnosis - have enabled the objectives of conservative surgery to be pursued: disease control, no or low incidence of recurrences and an excellent esthetic result. However, to reach these objectives, it is essential to ensure a careful evaluation of the medical history of every patient, a detailed clinical examination and the correct interpretation of imaging. Particular attention should be paid to all factors influencing the choice of treatment and/or possible local recurrence: age, site, tumor volume, genetic predisposition, pregnancy, previous radiotherapy, pathological features, and surgical margins. The decision to undertake conservative treatment thus requires a multidisciplinary approach involving pathologists, surgeons and oncological radiologists, as well, of course, as the patient herself.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Data analysis for clinical applications

This text is taken from the postgraduate thesis, which one of the authors (A.B.) developed for the degree of Medical Physicist in the School on Medical Physics of the University of Florence. The text explores the feasibility of quantitative Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy as a tool for daily clinical routine use. The results and analysis comes from two types of hyper spectral images: the first set are hyper spectral images coming from a standard phantom (reference images); and hyper spectral images obtained from a group of patients who have undergone MRI examinations at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital. This interdisciplinary work stems from the IFAC-CNR know how in terms of data analysis and nanomedicine, and the clinical expertise of Radiologists and Medical Physicists. The results reported here, which were the subject of the thesis, are original, unpublished, and represent independent work.