Women with a recent diagnosis of cancer in one breast should have magnetic resonance imaging screening of the other breast, according to a study in the new issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

An international research team headed by scientists at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that MRI detected cancer in the opposite breast in 3.1 per cent who had recently been diagnosed with cancer in one breast only. The cancers in the other breast were overlooked by previous mammography and clinical examination.