[MRI breast-cancer screening: particularly important in women at increased risk]

In some women, the density of breast tissue is a limiting factor in the detection of early-stage breast cancer by palpation and mammography. This is the case in young women, for example. MRI sensitivity is not influenced by tissue density. For this reason, it would appear that young women with a genetic or familial predisposition to breast cancer would benefit from MRI screening. A series of prospective studies has shown that the sensitivity of MRI is almost twice that of mammography in these women. As a result, the disease stage in those patients screened by MRI is lower than in the patients screened by a different method. In well-defined groups MRI of the breasts may be an important additional screening tool in women at increased risk of breast cancer.