A study by Dutch researchers has concluded that women with a strong family history of breast cancer should consider regular screening with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in addition to having an annual mammogram.

Magnetic resonance imaging is a technique that uses magnetic fields to excite particles in soft tissues, thereby creating an image or picture. It is capable of detecting some changes missed by conventional mammography and may also be useful in staging the disease.

Writing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the team of researchers, led by Dr. Mark Stoutjesdijk of University Medical Center St. Radboud in Nijmegen, reported on their study comparing MRI and mammography for Dutch women considered at high risk for the disease.

Specifically, they sought to determine if MRI would be more effective for women whose lifetime risk of breast cancer exceeded 15 percent based on family history or genetic mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.

In the group of 179 women in the study, the researchers found 13 malignant (cancerous) tumors. Importantly, MRI found all 13 of the tumors and did not result in any false-negative results (indicating that no cancer was present when, in fact, it was). Conversely, mammography resulted in seven false-negative reports.

The authors cautioned that mammography remains an important screening tool for all women and should not be excluded from a comprehensive cancer screening program. However, MRI was clearly superior, they concluded, in detecting early breast cancer tumors—and should therefore be considered as an additional screening tool for women at high risk for the disease.

“MRI was more accurate than mammography in annual breast cancer surveillance of women with a hereditary risk of breast cancer,” they wrote. However, they noted that larger, prospective studies were needed to better determine MRI’s overall value as a screening tool.