Differentiation of clinically benign and malignant breast lesions using diffusion-weighted imaging

✍ Scribed by Yong Guo; You-Quan Cai; Zu-Long Cai; Yuan-Gui Gao; Ning-Yu An; Lin Ma; Srikanth Mahankali; Jia-Hong Gao

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 721 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.10140

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the value of diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions.

Materials and Methods

Fifty‐two female subjects (mean age = 58 years, age range = 25–75 years) with histopathologically proven breast lesions underwent DWI of the breasts with a single‐shot echo‐planar imaging (EPI) sequence using large b values. The computed mean apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) of the breast lesions and cell density were then correlated.

Results

The ADCs varied substantially between benign breast lesions ((1.57 ± 0.23) × 10^−3^ mm^2^/second) and malignant breast lesions ((0.97 ± 0.20) × 10^−3^ mm^2^/second). In addition, the mean ADCs of the breast lesions correlated well with tumor cellularity (P < 0.01, r = −0.542).

Conclusion

The ADC would be an effective parameter in distinguishing between malignant and benign breast lesions. Further, tumor cellularity has a significant influence on the ADCs obtained in both benign and malignant breast tumors. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2002;16:172–178. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.