Purpose
Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) quality may vary across the United States.
Our aim was to investigate the quality of outside breast MRIs presenting for second
opinion at a tertiary cancer center following implementation of the American College
of Radiology (ACR) Breast MRI Accreditation Program.
Materials and Methods
We retrospectively reviewed the technical quality of the MRI studies of 100 consecutive
cases submitted for second opinion in 2013. The image quality was blindly reviewed
per ACR Breast MRI Accreditation Program by three fellowship-trained breast radiologists
and one breast imaging fellow.
Results
In total, 88 of the 100 cases were referred from facilities in the United States.
Sixty (68%) of the 88 cases had at least one technical deficiency. In 10 cases (11%),
more than five different technical deficiencies occurred. The most frequently encountered
deficiencies were related to artifacts (74%), with shimming (N = 17) and motion (N = 16) being the most common. In total, 38% of cases (N = 33) had a deficient T2-weighted sequence, mostly due to low signal to noise ratio
(N = 25). A total of 27% cases (N = 24) had deficiencies in the delayed phase postcontrast T1-weighted sequence, mainly
due to low signal to noise ratio (N = 21) and 23% had deficiencies in the early phase postcontrast T1-weighted sequence,
predominantly due to low signal to noise ratio as well. (N = 19).
Conclusion
Our study demonstrates variability of breast MRI quality across the United States.
Radiologists should become familiar with the requirements of the ACR breast MRI accreditation
program and strive to meet the expected standards in order to enhance patient quality
and safety.
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: July 29, 2019
Accepted:
July 4,
2019
Received in revised form:
June 20,
2019
Received:
May 17,
2019
Footnotes
Funding: This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health through Cancer Center Support Grant P30CA106672 .
IRB approval: Our institutional review board approved this HIPAA-compliant retrospective cohort study and waived the requirement for informed consent.
Meeting presentation: Presented at the 2018 American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting, Washington DC, USA, on April 22–27, 2018.
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
