should breast cancer patients skip the pre-op MRI?

For the study, she and her colleagues pulled together data

from nine previous studies to see if MRIs influence the number of women who had their breast removed or who had a second surgery to remove additional cancer. From the nine studies, they had information on 3,112 women who had breast cancer surgery.

Overall, the team found that about 16 percent of the women who had an MRI ended up having the entire cancerous breast removed during their first surgery. That's compared to about 8 percent of women who did not have an MRI.

They also found that having an MRI before surgery did not

influence whether women would need additional surgery to remove more tissue. In each group, between 11 percent and 12 percent had to have more surgery.

After taking into account the initial surgery and second

operations, the researchers calculated that about 26 percent of those who had an MRI ended up having their entire breast removed, compared to 18 percent in the no-MRI group.

"It causes more mastectomies to start with, but it doesn't

decrease the number of women who started out wanting a lumpectomy and needing a mastectomy," said Morrow of the preoperative MRIs.

The study did not look at long-term outcomes, nor did it

examine the use of MRI to screen the opposite breast for signs that cancer had spread, while the results do not apply to certain subgroups of patients, including women with genetic mutations that predispose them to cancer.

"There may be select circumstances where

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