Some Women at High Risk of Breast Cancer May Benefit from Breast MRI

Some women have about a fifty-fifty chance of developing breast cancer at some time in their lives simply because they carry certain gene mutations known as BRCA1 or BRCA2. If you have had genetic testing that shows you are in this high-risk category, it's very important that you have regular mammograms to detect breast cancer early. But women with the BRCA1 mutation often contract aggressive cancers that mammograms don't find until the disease has progressed. A new study by Sylvia Plevritis and her colleagues at the Stanford University School of Medicine examined the usefulness of magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) for early detection of breast cancer for these high-risk groups. MRIs normally aren't used for breast cancer screening because of their high cost and high false positive rates compared to mammograms. But Dr. Plevritis found that if she set the value of a quality-adjusted year of life at $100,000, breast MRIs for women who have the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation are cost-effective. This means that the extra expense of MRIs would be more than balanced out by the longer lifespans of women who would find their cancers early enough for effective treatment.

This doesn't mean that every woman with these gene mutations should have a breast MRI. But as MRI equipment becomes more available at lower cost, it may eventually become a standard screening method for women who have a higher than normal risk of breast cancer. A press release about the study can be found at the Susan G. Komen Foundation.