In her presentation, Dr. Marissa Lawson from the University of Washington in Seattle will delve into her team's findings, which pitted the two imaging methods, as well as standard MRI, against each other. The researchers evaluated a total of 492 interpretations of CEM and abbreviated MRI from 246 participants with an average age of 51.7 years. Of the 50 MRIs with lesions recommended for biopsy, nine had malignant pathology.
The team found that CEM's sensitivity and specificity were 61.1% and 87.8%, respectively. Compared with MRI, CEM had lower recall rate (-8.7%), lower false positive biopsy recommendation rate (-97.6), and higher specificity (7.6%). All differences were statistically significant.
However, CEM also had significantly lower sensitivity (-38.9%) and cancer detection rate (-14.2) versus MRI. The sensitivity and specificity of abbreviated MRI meanwhile were 88.9% and 75.7%, respectively.
Also, CEM had a significantly lower recall rate when compared with abbreviated MRI (-12.6%), as well as lower false-positive biopsy recommendation rate (-115.9) and higher specificity (12%). No significant differences were found between the two when it came to sensitivity, cancer detection rate, or positive predictive values. Additionally, the researchers found no significant differences between abbreviated and standard MRI performance metrics.
"Abbreviated MRI had comparable performance to MRI and is likely an acceptable alternative for high-risk screening," Lawson et al wrote. "Differences in CEM performance warrant further consideration of patient population characteristics before widespread use."
Attend this Sunday presentation to learn more.
