Magnetic resonance imaging (mri) staging for breast cancer in a diverse population.

摘要

Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers information about many breast conditions that cannot be obtained by other imaging modalities such as mammography or ultrasound, particularly in higher risk situations such as genetic susceptibility. For patients diagnosed with breast cancer, case series have shown that staging MRI can detect occult breast cancers in other areas of the breast in 1-10% of newly diagnosed patients. The specificity of MRI, relationship to demographic and clinical factors, and the impact on surgical management in underserved and diverse populations has not been well studied. We sought to conduct an analysis in two distinct populations - an academic practice, involving mostly an insured population, and an underserved, underinsured minority population, over the same time period using similar diagnostic procedures.