[MR mammography]

For a favorable prognosis breast cancer must be diagnosed as early as possible. Among the available imaging modalities (mammography, sonography, DSA, thermography, CT) only mammography has been able to demonstrate a significant reduction in mortality, but unfortunately only for women above 50 years of age. Magnetic resonance mammography (MRM) has been under technical and clinical evaluation for more than 10 years. Special surface coils and a variety of measurement sequences have been tested. By using "dynamic MRM," i.e., repetitive imaging of the same slices before and at short time intervals after the injection of a contrast medium, high sensitivity (98.9%) and specificity (97.2%) was found in detecting breast cancers of different histologies. In this study, especially clinically or mammographically difficult cases were included in order to test the efficacy of dynamic MRM. Breast cancer can be proven or excluded with a very high degree of confidence. A vast number of false-positive findings that plague conventional mammography will no longer require biopsy. The remarkable uniformity of the maximum rate of signal enhancement in carcinomas may be explained by the altered vascularization of malignant tumors based on early tumor angiogenesis. This change in vascularization can be detected by combining the use of contrast medium with a highly sensitive measurement technique.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)