Researchers presented new diagnostic techniques in breast cancer screening at the 31^st Annual Symposium of the American Society of Breast Disease (ASBD).

While mammography is the most commonly used screening method for breast cancer, according to cancer experts, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has also been shown to be a useful screening tool.

Mri technology allows physicians to detect disease that is often overlooked by mammography, particularly in dense breasts. Therefore, MRI IS gaining wider acceptance for breast cancer screening.

"The purpose of this study was to assess the incidence of breast cancer that was not visible through mammography, but was detected by MRI in the contralateral breast," explained Johnny Bernard, MD, resident, Breast Cancer Program, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, United States.

The researchers reviewed the results from 401 women who were newly diagnosed with breast cancer and who subsequently underwent MRI. The median age at diagnosis among this patient cohort was 62 years (range: 25-91). If the patient had a finding in the contralateral breast upon MRI, she also underwent additional diagnostic tests to characterise the nature of the finding.

The MRI procedure detected contralateral breast abnormalities in 129 (32%) patients that were otherwise occult on mammography. Seventy five (58%) of these patients underwent biopsy. Of this group of patients, 13 (17%) had a carcinoma confirmed by pathology, and 62 (83%) had benign disease. For the 13 patients with confirmed contralateral carcinoma, nine were found to have invasive ductal carcinoma, and the other four patients were diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

"Therefore, in our study, we found the overall incidence of mammographically occult contralateral breast carcinoma to be 3.2% [13/401]," said Dr. Bernard in a presentation on April 13^th.

Based on these findings, Dr. Bernard and his colleagues concluded that approximately one third of all patients will have mammographically occult disease that can be detected by MRI.

MRI is increasingly gaining acceptance as a useful and nonsurgical alternative in the accurate diagnosis and staging of breast cancer. However, because it can be an expensive procedure, the researchers recommend that a further cost-benefit analysis may help identify those high-risk patients who would benefit most from diagnostic MRI.