[Evaluation of the contralateral breast with magnetic resonance in patients with newly diagnosed unilateral breast cancer]

Abstract

Breast Magnetic Resonance (BMR) imaging is a useful tool in the evaluation of breast cancer before surgical treatment. BMR imaging plays an important role in the evaluation of the extension of the malignant lesions, and the study of multifocality and multicentricity. BMR may have a role in the detection of synchronous contralateral breast cancer that is occult to conventional imaging methods (mammography and ultrasonography). In this study we review 13 series of different authors in which they have used BMR in the evaluation of the contralateral breast in patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer. Two thousand five hundred and eleven patients were evaluated with BMR and 123 contralateral cancers, that were occult to conventional methods, were detected with this technique (4,9 %). Therefore, BMR imaging of the breast is useful as a complementary tool because of its high sensitivity in local staging of a breast cancer and its ability in the detection of synchronous contralateral breast cancer in patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer.