Breast cancer screening is essential for reducing mortality, yet current modalities face significant barriers, including high costs, limited accessibly, and reliance on ionizing radiation, which leads many women to forego regular screenings. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) offers a radiation-free alternative, but its adoption for screening is constrained by cost, availability, and the need for IV contrast administration. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of ultra-low field (ULF) unilateral breast MRI for screening applications. ULF MRI was performed on 11 healthy women in a prone position. These participants were healthy women without a history of breast cancer. Three breast radiologists could reliably delineate breast outlines and distinguish fibroglandular tissue (FGT) from adipose tissue. Tissue patterns (fatty, scattered, heterogeneous, and extreme FGT) were consistently identified. In two additional patients with prior breast cancer, ULF MRI effectively eliminated magnetic susceptibility artifacts from surgical biopsy clips and in one of these patients revealed post-surgical changes following lumpectomy. Additionally, in another patient, a > 3 cm cyst, previously confirmed on standard clinical ultrasound, was feasible to visualize with ULF MRI. These findings establish the technical feasibility of ULF breast MRI. While preliminary, they motivate further technical development and evaluation to clarify its capabilities and limitations.
Shen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.