Which women at high risk benefit from breast MRI?
A. Supplemental breast MRI screening has been recommended in addition to mammography for women who have tested positive for the high risk BRCA 1 and 2 mutations, women who have not been tested or have tested negative but who have a strong family history of breast or ovarian cancer which suggests a possible genetic mutation or unusually high degree of personal risk, and patients whose overall lifetime risk of developing breast cancer exceeds 20%. Women who received therapeutic doses of radiation therapy (such as for Hodgkin’s disease) to the chest wall were also recommended by the American Cancer Society to consider MRI breast screening. Because even women who have themselves had breast cancer may not fall into these categories, genetics counseling and testing as well as formal risk assessment may be helpful when determining which patient may benefit from MRI screening.
