High-risk women should get breast cancer MRI: study

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Detecting breast cancer with sensitive
magnetic resonance imaging is expensive but worth it for women
who carry a gene mutation that puts them at higher risk for the
disease, a study said on Tuesday.

Though rare, the inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic
mutations increase a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer by
as much as 80 percent.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) costs 10 times more than
mammography but is capable of detecting hard-to-find tumors,
such as those under the armpits, earlier. The exam also
produces more false-positive results, the study said.

Using a computer model that set a threshold of $100,000
spent for each year of life gained, researchers at Stanford
University School of Medicine concluded that MRIs are
cost-effective for women aged 35 to 54 who have the BRCA1
mutation. MRIs are also cost-effective for women in that age
group with the BRCA2 defect for whom mammographies are not
sensitive enough to detect tumors.

“Magnetic resonance imaging has a larger role in screening
BRCA1 mutation carriers because they are at greater risk for
developing breast cancer and their cancers are more aggressive
than those that develop in BRCA2 mutation carriers,” study
author Sylvia Plevritis wrote in the Journal of the American
Medical Association.

The genetic mutations are found in roughly 2 percent of
Ashkenazi Jews, five times the frequency as in the general
population, according to the National Cancer Institute.

“With substantial declines in its cost, breast MRI
screening is likely to represent an acceptable value for a
broader group of women,” the study concluded.