Abbreviated Breast MRI Has High Diagnostic Accuracy for Dense Breasts

THURSDAY, May 22, 2025 (HealthDay News) — For women with extremely dense breasts who are negative for cancer at mammography, abbreviated breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for first-round screening has high diagnostic accuracy, comparable to the full multiparametric protocol, according to a study published online May 20 in Radiology.

Sophie E.L. van Grinsven, Ph.D., from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and colleagues compared multireader diagnostic accuracy of various abbreviated screening breast MRI protocols to that of the full multiparametric protocol in a secondary analysis of the Dense Tissue and Early Breast Neoplasm Screening trial. Seven radiologists performed incremental readings of first-round screening MRI scans in women with extremely dense breasts and negative findings for cancer at mammography. Different sequences were added in four incremental steps.

The first-round screening included 518 MRI scans, with 83 breast cancers: 68 invasive cancers and 15 ductal carcinomas in situ. The researchers found no evidence for a difference in sensitivity between the abbreviated protocol and full multiparametric MRI protocol (84.3 and 85.9 percent, respectively). No evidence was seen for a difference in specificity between the abbreviated protocol and full protocol (73.9 versus 75.8 percent). The pooled reading time was almost 50 percent shorter for the abbreviated versus the full protocol (49.7 versus 96.4 seconds), with 70 to 80 percent shorter scanning time, depending on the scanner vendor and hospital.

“Shorter reading and scan times may allow implementation of MRI in national screening programs, making it available for all women with extremely dense breasts,” coauthor Wouter B. Veldhuis, M.D., Ph.D., also from Utrecht University, said in a statement.

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical and publishing industries.

Abstract/Full Text

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