Breast and prostate MRI: new frontiers in women and men's imaging

The very high sensitivity and increased specificity of breast and prostate MRI, due to recent technical advances, enables more lives to be saved due to earlier diagnosis. Demand for breast MRI continues to increase due to the American Cancer Society's 2007 guidelines, recognition of its benefit by breast surgeons, and requests from patients at high risk due to dense breast tissue, family history, or other factors. With these more recent additions of perfusion,diffusion,and spectroscopy to anatomic information, prostate MRI is being more readily accepted by urologists as part of the staging evaluation for the appropriate subset of patients with prostate cancer, or pre-diagnosis evaluation for specific subsets of patients. Imaging facilities contemplating a breast and/or prostate MRI program need to consider potential demand, staffing, necessary equipment, a CAD system for study interpretation and reporting, and insurance reimbursement management.