Findings seen in patients with newly diagnosed clinical stage I to II triple-negative or HER2-positive breast cancer<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n
THURSDAY, Dec. 11, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for local staging and surgical planning does not improve local regional control among patients with early-stage triple-negative and human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer, according to a study presented at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held from Dec. 9 to 12 in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Isabelle Bedrosian, M.D., from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and colleagues reported the primary outcome of five-year local regional recurrence (LRR) among patients with newly diagnosed clinical stage I to II estrogen receptor (ER)\/progesterone receptor (PR)-negative and HER2-negative (triple-negative) or ER\/PR-negative and HER2-positive breast cancer, deemed eligible for breast-conserving surgery (BCS). A total of 319 participants were randomly assigned to undergo staging breast MRI or no further local staging (161 and 158 patients, respectively).<\/p>\n
Overall, 85 percent of the patients utilized systemic chemotherapy; 17.6 percent received treatment neoadjuvantly. A total of 93.4 percent of patients underwent surgical intervention: 91.9 underwent BCS as the initial surgical procedure, with no significant difference observed between the no-MRI and MRI groups (92.7 versus 91.9 percent). The researchers found that with median follow-up of 61.1 months, there were no differences in the rates of LRR among the 298 patients evaluable for the primary end point; five-year local regional control was 93.2 and 95.7 percent in the MRI and no-MRI groups, respectively. The five-year distant recurrence-free rate and overall survival were 94.3 and 92.2 percent, respectively, in the overall cohort, with no between-group differences noted.<\/p>\n
“Our results further imply that there is no clinical utility to using preoperative MRI for the diagnostic workup of breast cancer patients to guide surgical treatment,” Bedrosian said in a statement. “We conclude that the routine use of MRI in this context is not warranted.”<\/p>\n