Preoperative MRI may be unnecessary for some breast cancer patients: 3 notes

Preoperative MRI may be unnecessary for patients with stage 1 or 2 hormone receptor-negative breast cancer, according to a study from Houston-based University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. 

The clinical trial was designed to test the assumption that utilizing MRI to detect additional disease before breast cancer surgery would reduce the risk of disease recurrence, Isabelle Bedrosian, MD, lead study investigator and surgical oncologist and professor of breast surgical oncology at MD Anderson, said, according to a Dec. 11 news release from the American Association for Cancer Research.

Here are three notes on the study:

1. The trial enrolled 319 patients with newly diagnosed stage 1 or 2, HR-negative breast cancer who were eligible for lumpectomy and had undergone diagnostic mammography without ultrasound. Participants did not have germline BRCA1/2 mutations, bilateral breast cancer or a history of prior breast cancer.
   
   Patients were randomly assigned to undergo additional imaging by breast MRI or to receive no further imaging.
   
   
2. After a median follow-up of about 61 months, 93.2% of patients who received MRI and 95.7% of patients who did not receive MRI remained free of recurrence. This difference was not statistically significant, the release said.
   
   Undergoing preoperative MRI also did not significantly affect five-year distant recurrence-free survival or overall survival rates.
   

3. “Our trial results show that there is no improvement in the oncologic outcomes of patients who undergo preoperative breast MRI staging as compared with those who do not,” Dr. Bedrosian said. “Our results further imply that there is no clinical utility to using preoperative MRI for the diagnostic workup of breast cancer patients to guide surgical treatment.”