Mastectomies for early-stage breast cancer rise after MRI

This study quoted in CBC News Canada gets to the crux of the problem with Breast MRI.
MRI and Breast Cancer

1. They have a high rate of false positives
2. We don't know if we are just picking up smaller disease that was always there and treated with radiation therapy.
3. It is feasible that having an MRI and recommending a mastectomy if a tumour is thought to be multifocal may not increase survival compared to treatment by cosnervative surgery and radiation therapy.

At the BCI, our pilot MRI study for women 50 years and under continues. Our target is 50 patients and we have NINE patients to recruit to complete the study.

Dr Nehmat Houssami, a research consultant at the BCI will be publishing a meta-analysis about MRI as part of an international collaboration

Vit D and Breast Cancer

There is more and more evidence that having normal Vit D levels is good for women with breast cancer. This new report is worth looking at (Click on the Title for more Details)

The researchers studied more than 500 women with breast cancer and found that women deficient in vitamin D were 94 percent more likely to have their cancer spread and 73 percent more likely to die from their cancer.

The findings of the study—which are expected to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting, to be held May 31 to June 3, in Chicago —suggest that vitamin D deficiency is very common in women with breast cancer. The study found that only 24 percent of the patients had adequate levels of vitamin D when they were diagnosed. The researchers discovered that human breast cancer cells shriveled up and died when vitamin D was added to them.


Many women are now Vitamin D deficient as they protect themselves from the sun.
We also measure Vit D levels when a patient is on an Aromatase Inhibitor as the reduced oestrogen levels can increase the incidence of Osteoporosis.