Dual-energy Contrast-enhanced Digital Subtraction Mammography (CESM) as a Tool to Screen High Risk Women for Breast Cancer: a Comparison to Screening Breast MRI

This research study is being done to test how well a contrast enhanced mammogram compares to MRI in screening for breast cancer in people who are at higher risk for developing breast cancer.

Standard screening mammograms can miss breast cancers due to its inability to "see through" dense breast tissue. For this reason, women at increased risk for the development of breast cancer often undergo additional screening beyond conventional mammography with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Although screening MRI is very sensitive for finding breast cancer, it also finds many areas that are benign (not cancer). The only way to know which is the cancer is to perform a biopsy, which contributes to patient anxiety and leads to many unnecessary biopsies.

In the preliminary studies performed in women already diagnosed with breast cancer, contrast enhanced mammography was shown to have a similar sensitivity for finding primary breast cancer but detected fewer of the benign findings which would result in fewer unnecessary biopsies. It is also a faster and less expensive exam compared to MRI. Contrast mammography was FDA approved in 2011 and is used now as a tool to help work-up abnormalities seen on standard mammography and ultrasound.

We are now studying to see if contrast enhanced mammography will also be a beneficial tool in the screening setting to screen high risk patients for breast cancer.