Clinical Indications of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Suspected Malignant Breast Lesions

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed life threatening cancer in females and the leading cause of cancer death among them. About one third of cancers in females arise in the breast. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been used as an important diagnostic tool for the breast, and the role of MRI in breast cancer is progressing. Many techniques are developed for beast MRI, the most useful of them is dynamic contrast enhanced technique. MRI improves the detection of primary and recurrent breast malignancy and evaluation of the response to treatment. It offers high sensitivity for the detection of multifocal and multicentric lesions, which is important in selecting patient candidates for conservative breast surgery. MRI is an ideal tool in screening young women with strong family history of breast cancer. Aim of work: The aim of our work was to study clinical indications for the use of MRI in suspicious malignant breast lesions, and its impact on patients' outcome. Materials and method: We collected data of 50 female patients who had breast MRI after mammography. The mean age was 44.5 years (range = 23-69 years). Patients presented with various clinical indications for breast MRI. Correlations of MRI findings with histopathology results were analyzed. Conclusions: The sensitivity of MRI in detecting malignant breast lesions was 90%. MRI showed statistically significant sensitivity for post-operative, post chemotherapy cases as well as in screening high risk patients.