MICROCALCIFICATIONS IN CLINICALLY NORMAL BREAST - THE VALUE OF HIGH-FIELD, SURFACE COIL, GD-DTPA-ENHANCED MRI

State-of-the-art screening mammography allows the detection of nonpalpable breast lesions in approximately 30% of patients. The presence of clustered microcalcifications without evidence of solid tumors usually requires further investigations, mainly biopsy. A 1.5-T magnet with a single breast coil was used 5 to evaluate 32 patients with indetermine mammography suggestive of microcalcifications prior to surgery. Both spin-echo (SE) and gradient-echo (GE; 2D fast low-angle shot [FLASH] techniques were utilized before and after injection of 0.2 mmol/kg Gd-DTPA. Upon surgery tumor diameters ranging between 3 and 10 mm. Use of MRI demonstrated 87.5% overall accuracy, 83.3% sensitivity, and 92.9% specificity. False-negative MRI results were in situ carcinomas less than 5 mm in size. All the correctly diagnosed carcinomas measured between 5 and 10 mm. Partial volume is probably the greatest limit of this technique and lesions equal to or smaller than 5 mm are only rarely detected. The GE and SE sequences demonstrated comparable results.