Contrast-enhanced Mammography Artifacts and Pitfalls: Tips and Tricks to Avoid Misinterpretation

Contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM) involves addition of intravenous iodinated contrast material at digital mammography, thus increasing the ability to detect breast cancer owing to tumor contrast enhancement. After image acquisition, interpretation includes careful assessment of the technique, artifacts, and pitfalls and reporting with a standard lexicon category and appropriate follow-up recommendations. Artifacts and pitfalls that may cause image misinterpretation should be detected and distinguished from pathologic conditions. Different artifacts apparent on CEM images are usually caused during image acquisition and include CEM-specific and contrast agent-related artifacts, apart from the typical digital mammography artifacts. The pitfalls are related to technical and diagnostic difficulties. One disadvantage of CEM that MRI does not have is a technical factor related to a mammography technique that consists of blind spots that may not be included in the imaging field of mammography views, including the axilla, medial region of the breast, or areas close to the breast wall. Normal breast tissue enhancement called background parenchymal enhancement is also present at CEM and may affect interpretation performance. Diagnostic pitfalls are caused by minimally enhancing lesions, such as invasive lobular carcinomas and mucinous carcinomas, which are difficult to detect with CEM, resulting in false-negative findings. Benign lesions can show enhancement at CEM and represent false-positive lesions that should also be recognized. The authors discuss image interpretation of CEM studies and focus on the artifacts and pitfalls that may be encountered. ©RSNA, 2023 Quiz questions for this article are available in the supplemental material.