The treatment of patients with localized breast cancer has changed considerably over the past few decades. The next challenge is to use image‐guided minimally invasive tumor ablation techniques. The fact that MRI is the most accurate imaging modality for visualization and delineation of breast tumor margins in three dimensions and provides MRI‐based temperature mapping, makes it particularly applicable for monitoring during minimally invasive ablation techniques. The overall result of the studies performed on MRI‐guided minimally invasive tumor ablation studies are varying, with reported total tumor ablation rates ranging between 20% and 100%. Strict selection of patients, consensus on the treatment zone margin and optimization of MR‐imaging, should make MRI‐guided breast cancer tumor ablation a useful tool in clinical practice. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2011;. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.