Breast MRI spots other cancers, may alter trea...(high-quality preoperative breast MRI alo...),Health

Date:12/5/2007

high-quality preoperative breast MRI along with the capacity to perform MRI-guided biopsy could benefit many cancer patients because it detects cancers that otherwise would be missed, particularly women with dense breasts that are difficult to see on mammography or smaller lesions hard to pinpoint on ultrasound. Early diagnosis and treatment of other sites of breast cancer with MRI may reduce recurrence rates following treatment, said Grobmyer, who is affiliated with the UF Shands Cancer Center.

MRI has been known for a while to be the most sensitive method to detect breast cancer, Grobmyer said. Some concerns over the use of MRI in this context have been one, the cost, and two, the fact that MRI detects many abnormal areas that upon further work-up turn out not to be cancer.

The cost of breast MRI can run 10 times that of mammography. That and subjecting women to the anxiety and discomfort of a biopsy for a tumor that turns out to be benign are among the reasons why using MRI has not been advised for everyone.

Still, if larger studies show that preoperative MRI reduces the need for second operations to obtain clean margins, some or all of the cost of the imaging could be offset by savings from avoiding more surgery, Grobmyer said. Costs may also be offset by reducing the future need for operations to manage breast cancer recurrences, which Grobmyer believes will be reduced by the use of preoperative MRI. Other research will have to answer whether by identifying cancerous areas earlier and changing the treatment plan, patients will have lower recurrence rates and improved cancer-related survival.

UF researchers said MRI might be especially useful for people considering partial breast radiation therapy. Patients undergoing lumpectomy typically receive whole-breast radiation, but more recently some practitioners have opted to only radiate a portion of the breast because when cancer recurs it typically does so in the scar from the or
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Contact: Melanie Fridl Ross ufcardiac@aol.com 352-690-7051 University of Florida Source:Eurekalert

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