Breast MRI

The quality of images produced by MRI of breast tissue is outstanding. It shows much greater detail compared to ultrasound or x-ray mammography.

This gives radiologists the flexibility to examine and view your breast tissue in detail, from many different angles without you needing to change positions. In comparison, mammography requires the breast and the x-ray equipment to be adjusted for each view.

It also makes it easy to take additional images of the muscle and chest wall around your breast to provide a more comprehensive diagnosis.

Breast MRI can be beneficial in detecting breast cancer in high-risk women with a strong family history or past history of breast cancer, or who carrying a genetic predisposition to breast cancer. Therefore, this service may also be used to examine the extent of breast cancer after a diagnosis has been made by mammography or ultrasound and tissue biopsy.

For examining breast implants, mammography and ultrasound may not penetrate saline or silicone well enough to view the implants or surrounding breast tissue. In contrast, MRI may offer clearer images of both implants and breast tissue. This makes MRI an excellent method to assess breast implants and detect small ruptures or leaks.

A referral from your doctor and an appointment is required for a breast MRI scan. This exam is to be booked days 7-11 of your cycle (if you still have cycles). If you have irregular cycles, a “Serum Progesterone Test” may be organised by Apex Radiology staff. As soon as the test has been taken, please ensure to call our bookings team to let us know so we can have our specialist Breast Radiologist review your results of this test. Please arrive 30 minutes prior to your appointment time.

When you attend your appointment you will be asked to answer a series of questions, remove any jewellery and change into an examination gown. Then the scanning procedure will be explained to you.

The scans are taken as you lay on your stomach. This ensures your breasts are correctly positioned and gently compressed. It will take 30 to 40 minutes to complete the assessment.

For most scans, an injection of the safe contrast solution, gadolinium, into your arm vein will be required—to enhance the detail of the images produced.

After preliminary scans are taken, the contrast solution is injected and the images are acquired. For scans looking for ruptures to breast implants, these ruptures show up clearly with MRI and the contrast solution is not required.

There are no known side effects.

A qualified medical imaging technologist, trained in all aspects of MRI scanning, will perform your scan at Apex Radiology. Then, specialist breast radiologists will interpret your scan and provide a comprehensive report on the findings to your doctor. We recommend that you make an appointment with your referring doctor to discuss the results of your breast scan.

After the examination you should be able to resume your normal activities immediately.

If the results of your scan are required urgently or you have an appointment with your doctor straight after the examination, please let the Apex Radiology staff know in advance. Otherwise the results of your scan will be sent directly to your referring doctor typically within 48 hours. Please ensure that you make a follow up appointment with your referring doctor or health care provider to discuss your MRI results.

Apex Radiology offers Breast MRI at:

• Peel Health Campus
• Bunbury Health Campus
• O’Connor