Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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  This is not a replacement for cheaper and widely available x-ray mammographic screening.
• However, it has applications in screening women at particularly high risk for familial / genetic reasons, who require more frequent screening from an earlier age than the general population.
• X-ray screening is not a useful in these subjects because:
  • More intensive screening results in a higher cumulative radiation dose
  • X-ray mammography at an early age is less diagnostic because breast tissue is denser.

 

The MRI approach combined structural and functional imaging.

• The functional data are obtained by injecting a contrast agent (which shortens T2) and plotting signal intensity against time as the agent flows into and out of the suspect region.
• In this case (R), fast inflow followed by a plateau region and then slow washout is suggestive of a cancer.
• This functional information supplements the structural information available to the radiologist (L)

 

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