Breast MRIs detect cancer 5 years earlier, save lives

FENTON (WWJ) Dr. David Strahle almost died as a young pilot when he flew into a thunderstorm.

“The radars could not penetrate the dense clouds that were surrounding these storms, so you couldn’t navigate around them,” said Strahle, a Fenton radiologist and former CEO of Regional Medical Imaging.

“We were having a commercial airline accident every 23 months due to thunderstorms and several general aviation aircraft were crashing as well, because you couldn’t see (the storms) and the radars were very limited at that time.”

Strahle never dreamed that, after changing careers, his solution to the radar problem would lead him on a life-saving mission to overhaul breast cancer screening procedures. On mammograms, dense breast tissue hid cancer cells, just as those heavy clouds hid the storm cells on the radar.

He launched a massive research study into mammography versus MRIs involving 671 randomly selected women from across the country.

The results astounded him, as he learned that mammography missed either benign or malignant lesions in roughly one third (234) of the women in the study.

“We also discovered MRI was scanning out into the future five to six years in identifying all of the cancers that were being missed in the present by mammograms,” Strahle said. "By bringing those cancers into the present, we were picking up cancers that were two, three, four, five millimeters in size, when they were much easier to cure.”

The MRIs also often found cancers early enough to mitigate the need for adjuvant treatment such as chemotherapy or radiation.

According to Strahle, a Screening Breast MRI takes about seven minutes. A woman lies on her stomach in the machine, which significantly reduces claustrophobia, and receives a small amount of gadolinium contrast.

Strahle recommends that most woman undergo a Screening Breast MRI every other year. The cost is $450 per MRI, which breaks down to $225 annually. The annual cost equals the amount insurance carriers currently pay for screening mammograms.

Insurance does not cover the cost of the MRI. However, Dr. Strahle is working on legislation to require all insurance companies in Michigan to provide a choice to women by paying for either a screening mammogram every year or a Screening Breast MRI every other year.

The Cleveland Clinic says that breast MRIs are often not recommended to women because: “MRI is very sensitive and may flag normal tissue as abnormal, leading to more tests.”

However, Dr. Strahle argues a little nuisance follow-up is a small price to pay for catching the cancer early. He also said mammograms more often require additional studies to diagnose an issue.

The American Cancer Society estimates about 42,140 women will die of breast cancer in 2026…mothers, daughters, sisters, friends.

WWJ’s Christina McDaniel asked Dr. Strahle how many lives routine Screening Breast MRIs could save.

“How many of the…women who die of breast cancer each year, how many of them would have lived if we picked those cancers up five or six years sooner,” Strahle said. “Now, only God knows. My answer is…a heck of a lot, maybe everyone.”

For more information, listen to the attached podcast or visit Regional Medical Imaging’s official website.