Are MRIs better than mammograms?

(New York-WABC, 2007) (WABC) -- There is some encouraging news in the fight against breast cancer. MRIs may be able to do a better job at spotting an early form of the disease.

Seven's On Call with Dr Jay Adlersberg.

That's what a study in the journal, "The Lancet" says. It's the first to follow women at normal risk for breast cancer, screening them with either MRI or mammography. The MRI was the winner at finding early cancers.

Thirty-nine year old Julie Quinton is having a screening exam for breast cancer, but it's not a mammogram. Julie's having an MRI. She's at high risk for the cancer, with a strong family history.

"My mom had cancer before 50," says Julie, "and my grandmother was slightly older. I'm trying to be smart and take advantage of every diagnostic tool that's out there."

Today that tool is the MRI, and the study showed how well it works for early cancers. It looked at 7,000 normal women for five years. The MRI found 96 percent of early cancers called DCIS, while standard mammograms found them only 56 percent.

DCIS cancers are pre-invasive, they have not spread even to nearby breast tissue.

"It means that in the future, MRI might be used as a screening tool, just as mammography is, to detect pre-invasive breast cancer," says Dr. Kristin Byrne of Lenox Hill Hospital.

This MRI study was the first to compare MRI to mammograms in women at normal cancer risk. Three yaers ago, a study showed that MRI was not as good as mammograms in finding DCIS breast cancers.

Dr. Byrne explains that better image quality and more experience among radiologists have brought MRI into its own and produced the results in the new study. Also, new guidelines this Spring from the American Cancer Society now recommend MRI for screening high-risk women. Those guideline may help high risk women with the $1,000 cost for the breast MRI.

"Now that the new guidelines have come out," says Dr. Byrne, "it's harder for insurance companies to reject paying if the patient is at high risk."

Julie's insurance required her to prove she has breast cancer high risk genes. She doesn't and may have to pay out of pocket.

Dr. Byrne says that larger studies on normal risk women are needed to prove MRIs are better than mammograms for general cancer screening.

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