Following this, patients with cancer were followed continuously between six months and 11 years, experiencing decreases in anxiety levels and reporting improvements in their quality of life. All are alive today and free of systemic disease.

Though able to detect invasive breast cancers faster and rule out suspicious abnormalities detected on mammograms due to its higher sensitivity, MR is often too expensive for routine screening, a fact which led 27 percent of patients to withdraw from the study within five years. Other withdrawals were attributed to prophylactic mastectomy, moving away or changes in healthcare providers.


Olufunmilayo Olopade, the Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor and associate dean for Global Health at the University of Chicago Medical Center, says that further evaluations of this approach may lead to more affordable coverage for MR breast imaging, enabling faster and less invasive, personalized assessments and detection of early stage breast cancer.

"This study demonstrates for the first time that aggressive breast cancers can be caught early, without excessive recalls or biopsies," she said in a statement.

Researchers performed 2,111 DCE-MRs, an average of seven per participant, and 1,223 mammograms, four per participant, citing high levels of surveillance and high-quality care in the prevention of breast cancer in the majority of women, despite most participants carrying genetic mutations. Continual screening was offered to patients who completed five years of study.

Support was provided by the National Cancer Institute; the Dr. Ralph and Marian Falk Medical Research Trust; Susan G. Komen; the Breast Cancer Research Foundation; and the Housewares Charity Foundation.

The findings are available in the journal, Clinical Cancer Research.

Researchers did not respond for comment.

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