Routine Use Of MRI Scans To Evaluate Breast Cancer Challenged By Study

[News]

A new study suggests women with newly-diagnosed breast cancer who receive an MRI after their diagnosis face delays in starting treatment and are more likely to receive a mastectomy. The study, presented at the 2008 ASCO Breast Cancer Symposium, also shows that despite lack of evidence of their benefit, the routine use of MRI scans in women newly diagnosed increased significantly between 2004 and 2005, and again in 2006.

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[gdpawel]

This study sounds like another "Oncologists' Guaranteed Employment Act Of 2008."

Getting an MRI delays the start of chemo by three weeks.

Got to give that chemo sooner rather than later.

There's no evidence that MRIs improve a woman's odds of survival.

MRIs were not approved because they saved lives in a controlled clinical trial that compared the outcome of patients who received care with or without the benefit of an MRI. They were approved because their performance characteristics (sensitivity/specificity) are reproducible, favorable and provide information to physicians.

Women who have MRIs are more likely to get mastectomies, instead of lumpectomies + chemo + radiation.

MRIs pick up the tumors earlier, where cancer is curable, and mastectomies allow the woman the comfort of that fact.

['lizbeth]

I was lucky that my surgeon sent for an MRI. It found 2 more lesions not picked up on either the mammogram or ultrasound. A lumpectomy would have been a bad choice for me.