Other Info Revealed by Breast MRI Will Change Treatment Plan

According to University of Florida surgeons, in about 20 percent of women with breast cancer who plan to undergo a lumpectomy, breast magnetic resonance imaging reveals important diagnostic information that alters their treatment plan.

Though nor routinely administered to breast cancer patients, MRI or magnetic resonance imaging has the following benefits:

• can find additional cancerous areas in the breast that previously evaded detection
• discover cancer in the opposite breast that standard imaging tests such as mammography and ultrasound missed
• determine a tumor is actually larger than expected

Whatever is found from the MRI totally alters the treatment in these women with breast cancer.

According to Stephen R. Grobmyer, M.D., an assistant professor of surgical oncology and endocrine surgery in the UF College of Medicine’s department of surgery:

“In these patients, we did one of three things: We offered them a mastectomy, we offered them another treatment — preoperative chemotherapy to shrink the lesion and allow us to save the breast — or, in some cases, we could perform a more precise excision to remove the cancer.

When you operate for breast cancer, you need to achieve clear margins around the tumor. This inability to clear the margin is a problem that continues to plague both breast surgeons and patients. In some recent reports the margin-positive resection rate for breast cancer is up to 50 percent.”

It is good to know that there are other procedures available in breast cancer imagine. If I were the patient I wouldn’t just agree to a total mastectomy if breast-conserving lumpectomy is possible.

Find more details from the University of Florida.