Emerging technologies in surgical planning for breast cancer

Background: Computer-assisted diagnosis (CAD) has been applied to mammography and chest radiography to improve diagnostic accuracy, and has the potential to improve the accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for detecting nodal metastases in women with newly diagnosed breast cancer. Methods Six women with newly diagnosed breast cancer underwent MRI of the breast and axilla. Radiologists applied digital tissue recognition (DTR), a form of CAD, to the MR images to detect nodal metastases. The results were compared with clinical staging and to surgical pathology. Results The accuracy of clinical staging for the 6 subjects was 3 of 6 (50%), and with DTR-MRI it rose to 6 of 6 (100%). Conclusions: DTR-MRI is a potential method for noninvasively detecting axillary nodal involvement in women with newly diagnosed breast carcinoma.