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Emerging Areas in Diagnosis

The tools below are under study for use in breast cancer diagnosis. They may give information about tumors that can help guide treatment.

Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses magnetic fields to create images of the breast.

There’s growing interest in breast MRI as a tool to help in the diagnosis and staging of breast cancer.

Learn about breast MRI and breast cancer screening.

Learn about abbreviated breast MRI (fast MRI), an emerging area in breast cancer screening.

Breast MRI for surgical planning

Although controversial, breast MRI is sometimes used to help decide whether a person should have mastectomy or lumpectomy.

Breast MRI can find small tumors in the breast that may be missed by a mammogram. Some health care providers use breast MRI before surgery to see how widely the cancer appears to have spread in the breast.

Using breast MRI in this way is controversial because it’s not clear if the small masses an MRI finds would be more effectively treated with mastectomy or with lumpectomy plus radiation therapy [14,79-81].

Studies have shown women who have breast MRI before surgery are more likely to have mastectomy instead of lumpectomy plus radiation therapy [81-85]. Based on the breast MRI images, women chose mastectomy although it may not have been a better option.

A meta-analysis that combined the results of 4 studies showed using breast MRI before surgery to make treatment decisions did not lower the risk of breast cancer recurrence [79].

This means women chose mastectomy over lumpectomy based on breast MRI results when lumpectomy plus radiation therapy would have been an equally good option. So, having a breast MRI before surgery may lead to more mastectomies with no added treatment benefit.

Some findings also show women who have breast MRI before surgery are more likely to have prophylactic mastectomy of the healthy (contralateral) breast, although there’s no proven benefit of having this surgery [84,86].

Talk with your health care provider if you have any questions about the benefits and risks of using breast MRI to plan your treatment.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a test that shows how much sugar is consumed by cells. Cancer cells tend to consume more sugar than normal cells. This can help identify tumors.

With PET, a short-term radioactive sugar is injected into the body. The cancer cells can then be imaged with a special camera.

PET is used to find metastases (cancer that has spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other organs, such as the bones, lungs, liver and brain).

PET is under study for breast cancer staging and finding cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes in the underarm area (axillary lymph nodes) [89-91].

However, some findings suggest PET doesn’t give a detailed enough image to make it a good tool for this task [87].

Visit the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s discoverMI.org website for more information on PET.  

Molecular and genetic differences among breast cancers may be useful in guiding prognosis (chances for survival) and treatment.

Most research studies divide breast cancer into 4 main molecular subtypes:

  • Luminal A
  • Luminal B
  • Basal-like/triple negative
  • HER2-enriched

Molecular subtypes are used mostly in research settings and are not included in pathology reports.

Prognosis and treatment decisions are mainly guided by tumor stage, hormone receptor status and HER2 status.

Learn more about the molecular subtypes of breast cancer. 

Tests that check for circulating tumor cells or circulating tumor DNA in the blood are sometimes called liquid biopsies.

Circulating tumor cell and circulating tumor DNA tests for people with metastatic breast cancer

Circulating tumor cell levels can help predict survival for people with metastatic breast cancer [92-93].

The more circulating tumor cells in the blood, the more advanced the metastatic breast cancer tends to be.

Having more circulating tumor cells may also predict a lack of response to treatment.

Circulating tumor DNA is also under study for use in monitoring metastatic breast cancer and predicting treatment response [94-97].

Circulating tumor cell and circulating tumor DNA tests are not used today to guide treatment [14,100]. This is because we don’t know if acting on test results improves outcomes [14,98-101].

These topics are under study.

Circulating tumor cell and circulating tumor DNA tests for people with early breast cancer

Circulating tumor cells may help predict recurrence and survival in people with early breast cancer [102-106].

Some studies have found women with early breast cancer who had more circulating tumor cells had a worse prognosis than those who had few or no circulating tumor cells [102-106].

Similarly, some findings have shown women with early breast cancer who have circulating tumor DNA after neoadjuvant therapy (given before surgery) or adjuvant therapy (given after surgery) may have a worse prognosis than those with no circulating tumor DNA [105-106].

Circulating tumor cell and circulating tumor DNA tests should not be used to guide early breast cancer treatment because they haven’t been shown to offer benefit [14,33].

These topics are under study.

Our commitment to research

At Susan G. Komen®, we are committed to saving lives by meeting the most critical needs in our communities and investing in breakthrough research to prevent and cure breast cancer. Our Research Program is an essential driving force for achieving this mission.

Since our inception in 1982, Komen has provided funding to support research grants that have greatly expanded our knowledge of breast cancer and helped us understand that breast cancer is not just a single disease but many diseases, unique to each individual.

To date, Komen has provided nearly $1.1 billion to researchers in 47 states, the District of Columbia and 24 countries to support research that has resulted in a better understanding of breast cancer; earlier detection; personalized, less invasive treatments for what was once a “one-treatment-fits-all” disease; and improvements in both quality of life and survival rates.

Learn more about our continuing investment in research and the exciting research that we are funding, because nothing would make us happier than ending breast cancer forever.

Susan G. Komen research spotlight

Komen-funded research led by Dr. Daniel Stover is using liquid biopsy, a blood test that looks for circulating tumor cells or pieces of DNA from tumor cells, to improve breast cancer treatment in the clinic.

Learn more in our blog, Dr. Daniel Stover Leverages Lab Learnings to Improve His Patients’ Care.

Updated 12/20/22

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