SEATTLE, March 28 -- Three percent of new breast cancer patients also have mammographically occult malignant tumors in the contralateral breast that can be detected only by magnetic resonance imaging, researchers reported. Among 969 women with a recent diagnosis of unilateral breast cancer and no abnormalities on mammography and clinical examination of the other breast, MRI found that 30 (3.1%) women had cancer in that breast nonetheless. The MRI-detected contralateral tumors were small and all were node negative.
The mean diameter of the invasive tumors detected was 10.9 mm. Forty percent of the MRI-detected malignancies were ductal carcinomas in situ (4 mm or smaller in diameter).
So reported Constance Lehman, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Washington here, and colleagues in the American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) trial, which was published in the March 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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