Objective We aimed to evaluate the role of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the visualization of breast lesions and to estimate whether MRI can be a reliable alternative to mammography (MG) and ultrasonography (USG) for this purpose. Materials and methods In this retrospective, single-center study, an analysis of medical files of 260 patients with breast masses as breast imaging reports and data system (BI-RADS) 4 and 5 at MRI was performed. The features of the breast lump, such as the side, location, multi foci or multicentricity, histopathological diagnosis, contrast-enhancement characteristics, radiological, and pathological axillary involvement, were noted. Consistency between MRI-BIRADS and MG+USG-BIRADS, as well as the association between lesion characteristics, was sought. Results The agreement ratio between the BI-RADS categories of MRI and MG+USG was 0.654 while consistency between histopathological diagnosis and MRI BI-RADS category was 0.838. The agreement between the BI-RADS category of MG+USG and histopathological diagnosis was 0.819. The consistency between MRI BI-RADS and MG+USG BI-RADS increased remarkably with the advancement of age. Similarly, the consistency between MRI BI-RADS and histopathological diagnosis tends to increase with the advancement of age. Nonmass contrast enhancement yielded the highest agreement ratios between MRI BI-RADS and MG+USG BI-RADS, histopathological diagnosis and MRI BI-RADS, and histopathological diagnosis and MG+USG BI-RADS. Conclusion Dynamic MRI is a useful and reliable method for imaging breast neoplasms. However, it is not devoid of disadvantages such as cost, attainability, and contrast use and it should be reserved as a problem-solving technique to be used in conjunction with conventional methods including MG and USG.
Keywords: bi-rads; breast tumor; imaging; magnetic resonance imaging; mammography; ultrasonography.
Copyright © 2020, Yilmaz et al.