But another study in 2019 said that breast MR may lead to unnecessary biopsies and found that while it found more breast cancers, breast MR combined with mammography showed no difference in distinguishing breast cancer from other findings (sensitivity) or ruling cancer out (specificity), compared to mammography alone. The combination also resulted in twice as many biopsies.

Breast MR also requires a lot of time to complete, though this has been partially remedied with the introduction of abbreviated breast MR. A group of South Korean researchers earlier this year found that using abbreviated breast MR reduced scanning time from 30 minutes to 10 minutes and was able to reduce costs, while still efficiently identifying signs of cancer.


U.S. and German researchers found in 2020 that abbreviated MR was better than digital breast tomosynthesis in detecting breast cancer. “Our study confirmed that AB-MR in women at average risk with dense breast tissue outperforms 3D mammography by a factor of 2.4 times in detecting women with breast cancer. And not only does it find more cancer, but it finds invasive and high-grade cancers not found on the 3D mammography,” Dr. Christopher Comstock, of MSK and the study’s lead author, told HCB News at the time.

The findings for the current study were published by Oxford University Press in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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