MRI Scans Recommended for Women at High Cancer Risk

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  For much of the past week, the subject of cancer has again captured national attention. Two public figures — Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow — disclosed their cancers had advanced.

  And today, new guidelines are calling for expanded use of MRI scans for women who are at higher risk of breast cancer. To fill us in on the latest research is our health correspondent, Susan Dentzer. Our Health Unit is a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

  Susan, thank you for being here.

• SUSAN DENTZER, NewsHour Health Correspondent:

  Thank you, Judy.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Let's start with these new breast cancer guidelines that have come out by the American Cancer Society. Explain what those are, who they apply to.

• SUSAN DENTZER:

  Judy, the average American woman will have a one out of nine chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. But some women will have a much higher risk, a one in four risk or even a one in five risk.

  These are women who have some particular strong family history of breast cancer. And by strong, I mean they've been assessed according to various risk models that look closely at this or they have perhaps inherited one of several identified breast cancer gene mutations that we know are linked to breast cancer, a couple known as BRCA1, BRACA-1, or BRCA2, which are associated with breast and ovarian cancer.

  And women with those genetic mutations will have as high as a 45 percent to even a 90 percent chance of developing breast cancer or ovarian cancer over their lifetimes.

  So if you fall into any of those categories or you fall into another category, which is you're a woman who's also been treated for something called Hodgkin's disease, and you've been treated essentially with radio therapy, you can also be at greater risk for breast cancer.

  If you're in any of those pools, the American Cancer Society now says you should be not just screened by routine mammography, which of course as we know for all women is recommended by the Cancer Society for routine annual screening, starting from age 40 on. In addition to mammography, the American Cancer Society says, you should also be screened with MRI.

  MRI, magnetic resonance imaging, is a technology that is distinct from mammography, which has very low-dose x-rays that gives you a couple of different views of the breast. MRI is going to give you a cross-sectional view, much more refined.

  And, in fact, if it's also used with what is the equivalent of a kind of a dye, a contrast agent, it's going to show, in much higher resolution, even very small cancers, tumors as small as a 100th of an inch or less.

  So the Cancer Society says you should be screened with an MRI, if you fall into one of these high-risk groups, because that is going to do a much better job of detecting a cancer when it's very small and very treatable.