Just What the Doctor Ordered

New Breast MRI Exam Helps Fight Breast Cancer. - The breast MRI exam, magnetic resonance imaging, has been available just over one year in the Valley.
-The breast MRI exam is not recommended as a screening tool for the all patients. It is used for high risk patients.
-Patients that are high risk have:
•A history of cancer
•A positive breast cancer gene
•A positive mammogram and/or can feel a lump
- As many as 10% of patients with breast cancer in one breast will have another lesion that wasnt evident on the mammogram or the ultrasound.
-The breast MRI exam is used to:
•Screen high risk patients
•Evaluate abnormalities
•Identify and stage early breast cancer
•Evaluate the progress of chemotherapy
•To determine the integrity of breast implants
- The procedure:
•The breast MRI takes approximately 2 to 3 hours
•Patients must lie still while in the machine
•The MRI machine uses high magnetic field strength to image the soft tissues of the breast
•Patients are given a paramagnetic substance intravenously to help enhance images
•The results are generally given 4 to 5 days after the exam

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Barrows
• breast cancer
• breast MRI exam
• MRI
• mammogram
• lumpectomy
• Linda Carbon
• breast biopsy
• imaging
• breast implants.