Breast cancer MRI comes to P.C.: Imaging machine first of its kind in Florida

Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer mortality in Florida. In Bay, Gulf and parts of Franklin counties alone, there are more than 350 new cases a year, according to the American Cancer Society.

But a new detection system might help lower those statistics.

Bay Radiology Associates recently purchased a $1.3 million Magnet Resonance Imaging, or MRI, system that is the only Food and Drug Administration-approved system designed to detect breast cancer. It is the only one of its kind in Florida and Southern Alabama and is a more accurate way to screen women who are at high risk of developing breast cancer.

"It only does an MRI of the breast, as opposed to others that do other parts of the body," said James Strohmenger, CEO and diagnostic radiologist at Bay Radiology's Women's Imaging Center. "It also allows us to do a biopsy of the breast at the same time."

MRIs utilize a computer, a magnetic field and radio waves, instead of X-rays. They produce detailed images of the soft tissues in the body. The new breast-specific system can detect even the smallest abnormalities that are missed in regular MRI scans.

The new system can determine the extent of cancer, characterize lesions, monitor cancer therapy and detect breast cancer in women with implants.

Patients enter the MRI feet first and lie on their stomachs. Their breasts fit into an opening in the system and are suspended away from the chest wall without being compressed. Both breasts are scanned at the same time. After the first scan is done, contrast dye is injected into the patient's arm, and five more sets of images are taken.

"If the contrast goes in quickly and back out quickly, it's cancer," Strohmenger said. "If it comes out slowly, it's not."

Though the MRI is deemed superior, doctors are not cutting out other detection methods.

"Because it takes 30 minutes versus four minutes for a mammogram, because the interpretation takes longer and because it costs way more than a mammogram," Strohmenger said.

Strohmenger said women still need to get a mammogram first.

"If an abnormality is found, they go to ultrasound," he said. "Then the MRI provides an additional test. Mammograms don't show detail in women with dense breasts."

Jean Fernandez, 53, falls into that category. Now the office manager, Fernandez has worked at Bay Radiology for 23 years and always has had her mammograms done there.

"I have dense breasts, so I usually get an ultrasound after the mammogram," Fernandez said.

In January 2006, her mammogram revealed a suspiciouslooking spot. Fernandez had a biopsy done, and it came back positive for cancer.

"I had to see a surgeon and had a lumpectomy," she said. "It was caught very early, so I was lucky."