Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Patients With Newly Diagnosed Breast Cancer: A Review

Despite the high sensitivity and widespread use of preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the American Cancer Society and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines do not recommend the routine use of preoperative MRI owing to the conflicting results and lack of clear benefit to the surgical outcome (reoperation and mastectomy) and long-term clinical outcomes (local recurrence and metachronous contralateral breast cancer). Preoperative MRI detects additional cancers that are occult at mammography and ultrasound but increases the rate of mastectomy. Concerns about overdiagnosis and overtreatment of preoperative MRI might be mitigated by adjusting the confounding factors when conducting studies, using the state-of-the-art image-guided biopsy technique, applying the radiologists’ cumulative experiences in interpreting MRI findings, and performing multiple lumpectomies in patients with multicentric cancer. Among the various imaging methods, dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI has the highest accuracy in predicting pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Prospective trials aimed at applying the MRI information to the de-escalation of surgical or radiation treatments are underway. In this review, current studies on the clinical outcomes of preoperative breast MRI are updated, and circumstances in which MRI may be useful for surgical planning are discussed.