MRIs most effective at spotting breast cancers in high-risk women, study suggests.

HealthDay reports, "MRIs caught more breast cancers in women at high risk for the disease than either mammography or ultrasound," according to a study in the August issue of Radiology. In the study of 171 "high risk" women — those with either the BRAC 1 or BRAC 2 gene mutation or a family history of the disease — "MRIs found all six of the breast cancers detected, while mammography spotted only two, and ultrasound found just one."
MedPage Today adds that study author Dr. Constance D. Lehman writes, "Although the specificity of MRI was lower than that of mammography or clinical breast examination (89.8%, 95.0%, and 98.1%, respectively), the overall accuracy of MRI was significantly higher." Study participants "were screened for breast cancer with MRI, mammography, and ultrasound, with no more than 90 days between each screening test." MedPage continues, "Dr. Lehman and associates concluded that their study further supports MRI ‘as an important complement to mammography in screening women at high risk for breast cancer.’ They acknowledged, however, that their study was small, did only a single round of screening, and did not include long-term follow-up."