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Improving breast cancer detection on MRI - in collaboration with Bracco

MRI is widely considered the best diagnostic imaging modality for the detection and characterization of  breast cancer. However optimal diagnostic performance on breast MRI depends not only on selection of the most appropriate MR image acquisition parameters but also on optimized contrast enhancement for both the detection of breast lesions and their accurate characterization as cancerous. In a paper published in Radiology, Martincich et al highlighted the importance of contrast agent relaxivity in improving malignant lesion detection and diagnostic performance on breast MRI. In an intra-individual crossover study in which 151 patients each received identical 0.1 mmol/kg bodyweight doses of the MR contrast agents gadobenate dimeglumine (MultiHance) and gadopentetate dimeglumine (Magnevist) in two otherwise identical breast MRI examinations, three blinded readers each showed that the high relaxivity agent gadobenate dimeglumine provides significantly superior contrast enhancement and leads to significantly improved detection of malignant breast lesions and significantly improved sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for the diagnosis of breast cancer. Moreover, each reader noted that the cancer misdiagnosis rates were roughly double with the standard relaxivity agent gadopentetate dimeglumine. The improved diagnostic performance with gadobenate dimeglumine was noted for all lesion types including non-invasive cancers and was ascribed to the better visualization of characteristic malignant features.

Bibliographic Reference

Martincich L et al.: "Multicenter, double-blind, randomized, intraindividual crossover comparison of gadobenate dimeglumine and gadopentetate dimeglumine for Breast MR imaging (DETECT Trial)", Radiology. 2011 Feb;258(2):396-408