Breast MRI


One alternative to mammography, Breast MRI or contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging, has shown substantial progress in the detection of breast cancer.

Indications

The available literature suggests that the sensitivity of contrast-enhanced breast MRI in detection of cancer is considerably higher than that of either radiographic mammography or ultrasound and is generally reported to be in excess of 94%.
The specificity is only fair, thus a positive finding by MRI should not be interpreted as a definitive diagnosis.
The reports of 4,271 breast MRIs from eight large scale clinical trials were reviewed in 2006.

Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis

The systemic disease nephrogenic systemic fibrosis resembles scleromyxedema and to some extent scleroderma. It may occur months after contrast has been injected. Patients with poorer kidney function are more at risk for NSF, with dialysis patients being more at risk than patients with chronic kidney disease. After several years of controversy during which up to 100 Danish patients have been gadolinium poisoned after use of the contrast agent Omniscan, it was admitted by the Norwegian medical company Nycomed that they were aware of some dangers of using gadolinium-based agents for their product. At present, NSF has been linked to the use of four gadolinium-containing MRI contrast agents.