Indications of Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI) of the Breast

Rationale and Objective Every two minutes a women is diagnosed with breast cancer that is one of the major causes of death.The complexity of early breast carcinoma diagnosis is conditioned by the variability of the breast structure during life, as well as cyclic, hormone conditioned changes. The common imaging methods used for detecting breast cancer are mammography , Ultra Sonography and MRI of breast. In comparison with two other, MRI has the potential to become a useful adjunct in breast imaging due to its high sensitivity, the ability to exclude multifocality / multicentricity and accuracy in determining small size and extent of a lesion.Methods The authors reviewed the literatures about magnetic resonance imaging of breast and its indications in patients with abnormalities. Results Indications for breast MRI include staging and treatment planning, evaluating palpable masses in the silicone augmented breast, detecting recurrent cancer in the posttreatment breast, identifying a clinically or mammographic occult primary tumor in the patient presenting with axillary breast cancer, evaluating the response to chemotherapy, screening in high risk women including those who are positive BRCA1( Breast cancer 1) and BRCA2( Breast Cancer 2) and evaluating cases of indeterminate mammographic findings including cases obscured by radiographically dense breasts.Conclusion MRI provides a highly sensitive screening strategy(sensitivity range: 93-100%), compared to mammography alone(25-59%), or ultrasound alone(40%), and mammography plus ultrasound(49-67%). MRI of the breast is emerging as a valuable adjunct to mammography and sonography for specific clinical indications.