An investigative study was undertaken to determine the potential for a new magnetic resonance (MR) imaging technique, RODEO (rotating delivery of excitation off resonance), for use as a diagnostic imaging tool for the breast. The RODEO technique provides fat suppression with T1 weighting and is ideal for gadolinium-enhanced breast imaging. It is a short repetition time, steady-state sequence for high-resolution three-dimensional acquisitions and provides a clinically efficient imaging time of approximately 5 minutes for 128 sections. Imaging findings were correlated with serially sectioned pathologic specimens in 30 breasts with 47 malignant and 27 benign lesions. MR imaging had a sensitivity of 94% and a specificity of 37%. MR imaging depicted additional cancers not seen at mammography in 11 of the 30 patients (37%). The lesions not seen at mammography varied in size from 3 mm to 12 cm. RODEO MR imaging may be used to improve diagnosis of breast cancer in patients with mammographically dense breasts or silicone implants/injections and to stage disease in patients who are candidates for lumpectomy.

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A retrospective study was performed by evaluating the time course changes in blood lead and zinc protoporphyrin concentrations in 240 industrial lead workers. The data indicate that there is a considerable difference in rate of change and plateau state for each of the two parameters. The difference in time course in these parameters indicates that both should be monitored in workers in order to estimate the accumulation of lead and the metabolic response to the body burden.

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