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Breast MRI is a non-invasive procedure that physicians use to determine what the inside of the breast looks like without having to do surgery or perform a mammogram. Each exam produces hundreds of images of the breast, cross-sectional in all three directions (side-to-side, top-to-bottom, front-to-back). No radioactivity is involved and there are no health hazards in general. Breast MRI is a growing technology and should not replace standard screening and diagnostic procedures such as clinical and self-exam, mammogram or biopsy.

Breast MRI can detect additional cancers in up to 30 percent of patients who have a single lesions that are sometimes missed by mammography. This MRI can get a clear picture of the dense breast (usually found in younger women) and breast implants.

The procedure for having a Breast MRI consists of the patient lying on her stomach with both breasts hanging freely into a cushioned alcove. This alcove contains the signal receiver or the breast coil. The entire bed on which she is lying is advanced into the opening of the magnet. The patient will be asked to lie still for up to 15 minutes at a time while the computer obtains the images. The total examination is made up of several scans, usually 5 to 15 minutes in length and the patient is usually in the magnet up to 60 minutes.

Mammograms use x-rays to generate images of the breast tissue to search for cancer. MRI, on the other hand, uses no x-rays. With MRI, the contrast between soft tissues in the breast is 10 to 100 times greater than that obtained with x-rays. This is why MRI is used much more than, for example, CT scanning, which uses x-rays, for diagnosing tumors in the brain.

One disadvantage of breast MRI is it doesn't detect certain types of very small calcifications, which on a mammogram can be an early indication of cancer. Instead, breast MRI uses different cancer markers, including the blood flow of the tumor, as well as the size and appearance of the tumor.