MRI can detect the contralateral breast cancer

Woman with unilateral breast cancer has an increased risk of having cancer in the contralateral breast. Despite normal findings on clinical and mammographic examination of the contralateral breast at the time of the initial breast-cancer diagnosis, however, contralateral cancer was subsequently detected in up to 10% of women. We conducted a study to determine whether magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could improve on clinical breast examination and mammography in detecting contralateralbreast cancer soon after the initial diagnosis of unilateral breast cancer. In their study, 46 patients with unilateral breast cancer were studied. These patients had cancer in one breast, but the other side of the axillary lymphnode positive breast cancer. However, mammography and ultrasound reports showed no tumor in the contralateral breast. Finally, According to Oncologist, patients performed MRI of both breasts. MRI results showed that in 32.6% (15 patients) of the patients tumor in the contralateral breast is visible. To ensure more and better accurate diagnosis, biopsy was performed for these 15 patients. Biopsy results confirmed that except of 4 patients, 11 other patients with cancer in the contralateral breast. In other words, the MRI showed that 23.9% of the patients with contralateral breast cancer, while the other side are notdetectable by other methods. In our study, all of the cancers that were detected by means of MRI were node-negative. success of screening programs for breast cancer lies in their ability to detect early cancer, before it has spread to lymph nodes or metastasized to distant sites.Our study shows that MRI can improve the detection of cancer in the contralateral breast when added to a thorough clinical breast examination and mammographic evaluation at the time of the initial diagnosis of breast cancer. The current cost of MRI precludes its widespread use in general populations, but this imaging tool appears to improve the detection of cancer in women at increased risk, such as women with a recent diagnosis of breast cancer.