Do not have an MRI, (and this is a general statement for all) during the week before your period. During this time many women experience bumps and swelling and pain in their breasts that are benign, i.e. cysts and fibroadenomas due to hormonal fluctuations.
If the timing is chosen wisely then false positives are limited.
No test is perfect for all occasions and at all times and for every problem and person.
I really did not appreciate having my poor insurance company pay thousands of dollars for false negatives, and where it really counted. i also am not fond of the allergic reactions I experience from the contrast material. But then the MRI worked wonders in seeing what all, and exactly, was wrong with my leg when I needed the truth.
KATRIN
The value of MRI varies depending on the patient's particular situation.. Although it can produce false positives, it is highly recommended under certain circumstances.
It can identify lesions in very dense breast tissue that cannot be seen by other forms of imaging.
Certain forms of breast cancer tend not to show up on mammograms, but can be found by MRI.
The American Cancer Society recommends that women at high risk for breast cancer (greater than 20% lifetime risk) should have breast MRI every year.
At the May, 2010 American College of Radiology meeting, it was recommended that indeterminate breast lesions (those that cannot definitely be identified as malignant or benign) seen on contrast-enhanced MRI should be aggressively investigated, rather than relegated to short-term followup, since a fairly high proportion turn out to be malignant.
Depending on ones individual circumstances, it sometimes comes down to whether the person is more concerned about avoiding the anxiety, inconvenience, and expense related to false positives, or is more worried about the risk of missing a true positive.