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Research led by Associate Professor David Hodgson of the Department of Radiation Oncology has found women who suffered from childhood Hodgkin lymphoma should seek magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) screening for early breast cancer detection.

This finding is the result of one of the largest clinical studies in paediatric cancer survivors.

A cancer of the lymphatic system, Hodgkin lymphoma has a cure rate of over 90 per cent. However, its treatment has traditionally involved radiation to the chest, neck and armpit areas. Such therapy raises the risk of developing breast cancer in female survivors.

Hodgson led a team at the Princess Margaret Hospital — part of the University Health Network — and worked together with scientists at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston on this research. They found the use of MRI screening helped detect invasive breast cancer tumours at an earlier stage than mammography — a conventional diagnostic tool used for early breast cancer detection. MRI screening was found to be much more sensitive to small changes in the appearance of the breast tissue.

Early detection means the affected person has more treatment options, less invasive forms of treatment and a better chance of surviving the disease, according to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

When a person survives one type of cancer, Hodgson explains, they may be hesitant to even consider the possibility of getting another.

“We estimate that 75 per cent of women who are at high risk because of prior radiotherapy to the chest are not being screened. So my hope is that this new evidence will encourage these survivors to discuss early screening with their doctors,” said Hodgson. “Our study demonstrates MRI is an excellent addition to mammography to discover breast cancer at a very early stage.”

The findings were published in the American Cancer Society Journal .

Vitaly Kazakov is a writer with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.