ASSESSMENT OF BREAST-CANCER RECURRENCE WITH CONTRAST-ENHANCED SUBTRACTION MR-IMAGING - PRELIMINARY-RESULTS IN 26 PATIENTS

Local relapse was suspected in 26 women treated conservatively for bre ast cancer. All women underwent routine magnetic resonance (MR) imagin g and a dynamic MR subtraction study after injection of gadolinium-tet raazacyclododecanetetra-acetic acid. Twelve women had no local relapse . Surgical biopsy enabled confirmation of recurrence in 14 patients. R outine MR imaging did not allow differentiation of recurrence from gla ndular or scar tissue. Except for one case of fat necrosis, patients w ithout local relapse showed no contrast enhancement 1 minute 34 second s after injection. At dynamic MR imaging, all recurrences showed contr ast enhancement 1 minute 34 seconds after injection. Nodular enhanceme nt (n = 11) was found in invasive carcinoma, whereas linear enhancemen t was seen in intraductal carcinoma (n = 3). Subtraction of precontras t from postcontrast images always allowed better visualization of cont rast enhancement. Contrast-enhanced subtraction dynamic MR imaging may prove to be accurate in diagnosis of local relapses of breast cancer.