Compliance with Short-Interval Follow-up MRI after Benign Concordant MRI-guided Breast Biopsy

To evaluate compliance with short-interval follow-up MRI after benign concordant MRI-guided breast biopsy.

This institutional review board-approved retrospective study included all benign concordant MRI-guided biopsies performed between January 1, 2010, and May 1, 2018. The following was collected from the electronic medical record: patient and lesion characteristics, short-interval follow-up MRI recommendation, communication to referring physician, follow-up imaging, repeat biopsies, biopsy outcome, and patient insurance status. Compliance with recommendations was defined as follow-up MRI within 9 months of biopsy.

Among 98 patients, there were 107 lesions with benign concordant MRI-guided biopsy results that met study criteria. After excluding 7 patients who underwent subsequent mastectomy, 50/91 (54.9%) patients were recommended short-interval follow-up MRI. Of these, 33/50 (66.0%) had a short-interval follow-up MRI. Direct communication of the short-interval follow-up recommendation was documented in the biopsy report for 4/50 (8%) patients. Subsequent MRI was available for 77/107 (72%) lesions at a median of 29 months following MRI-guided biopsy (range, 3-96 months). Subsequent mammography was available for 21/30 (70%) remaining lesions at a median of 47 months following MRI-guided biopsy (range, 23-88 months). There were two repeat biopsies, with one subsequent malignancy, resulting in a false-negative rate of 0.9% (1/107).

When short-interval follow-up MRI was recommended following benign concordant MRI-guided breast biopsy, compliance was 66.0%. Lack of communication of the recommendation may at least partially explain the low compliance. The low false-negative rate (0.9%) suggests routine short-interval follow-up MRI may be unnecessary following benign concordant MRI-guided biopsy.