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CoBrCa 2016 | The use of MRI for the diagnosis of breast cancer

Julia Camps Herrero , MD of the Hospital de la Ribera, Alzira, Spain, discusses the use of MRI for the diagnosis of breast cancer at the 2016 World Congress on Controversies in Breast Cancer (CoBrCa), in Barcelona, Spain. She believes that MRI is an essential tool because it is the best diagnostic technique available nowadays for breast cancer. The problem with MRI, however, is that it has to meet minimum requirements in order to be good for the patient – it has to be technically good, and it has to be interpreted by a breast radiologist so that he can integrate all the information from mammography, ultrasound and other techniques, into what he is seeing with the breast MRI. If that fails, it is better not to perform the technique as it could be damaging for the patient. It is important that radiologists analyse histologically any additional lesions seen in breast MRI that can change the treatment of the patient. It is also important that all the findings should be discussed in multi-disciplinary team discussions and that everybody partakes in the decision. Furthermore, there are certain lesions which are difficult to approach and they should be discussed thoroughly with the pathologist. The pathologist has to review the imaging in those cases where there is for example, multifocal or multicentric disease, because it has been seen that breast MRI is much more accurate sometimes and sees more than the pathologist does. She concludes that therefore, it is a multi-disciplinary team discussion and a multimodality integration of information.