Screening strategies in women at high risk for breast cancer: Review of the literature

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in the female population in the world, but not all women have the same absolute lifetime risk of developing it, there being a group called "high risk" with a risk equal to or greater than 20%, in whom the disease begins at an earlier age and tends to be more aggressive. Materials and methods: A review of the literature was carried out in Google Scholar and PubMed databases using keywords such as "breast cancer", "high risk", "breast cancer induced by radiotherapy", "screening", "protocols", and "images". Finally, 53 articles were analyzed, after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: All women should undergo a risk assessment starting at 25 years of age. In the high-risk group, the screening strategy should be early, multimodal and annual. Ample evidence in the literature that MRI is the most sensitive imaging method for the diagnostic of breast cancer. Conclusion: Breast MRI will be the method of choice along with mammography to perform annual screening in this risk group. The heterogeneity of the subgroups within this high-risk group and the advent of AI improving the precision of diagnostic methods raises the need to personalize screening strategies. (c) 2024 SESPM. Published by Elsevier Espa & ntilde;a, S.L.U. All rights reserved.