Is breast MRI screening more effective than digital mammography in Asian women?

Background/Purpose: The incidence of breast cancer in Taiwan is increasing, and this form of cancer has already become the number one malignancy. Taiwanese women share similar characteristics of breast cancer with other developed Asian countries such as a younger age at diagnosis. In addition, a large proportion of Asian women have dense glandular breast tissue, which lowers the sensitivity of mammography for cancer detection. In this study, we compared possible differences in image interpretation of digital mammography and a dedicated breast magnetic resonance imaging system (using spiral RODEO). Methods: From March 2008 to April 2009, we retrospectively collected data on 106 Taiwanese women who received both digital mammography and dedicated breast magnetic resonance imaging examinations in the same period. We divided these cases into non-dense and dense groups according to breast density, and compared the image interpretations based on the different modalities. Results: There were statistically significant differences (p <0.05) in the "no match", "partial match", and "exact match" image interpretations categories between the non-dense and dense groups. Conclusion: Mammography may be useful for screening in non-dense breast tissue, but breast magnetic resonance imaging should be an additional screening tool in populations with dense breast tissue.