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Updated: Jul 18, 2026
Tracking the Mammary Architectural Features and Detecting Breast Cancer with Magnetic Resonance Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Published on: December 15, 2014
Diagnosis of breast tumors by contrast-enhanced MR imaging: comparison between the diagnostic performance of dynamic
Mariko Goto1, Hirotoshi Ito, Kentaro Akazawa
1Department of Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kajiicho, Kyoto, Japan. gomari@koto.kpu-m.ac.jp
Purpose:
To compare the diagnostic performance of breast lesions by the enhancement patterns and morphologic criteria on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Materials And Methods:
Both T1-weighted 3D gradient-echo sequences with high temporal resolution and high-spatial-resolution MRI were performed on 190 patients with a total of 204 enhancing lesions (144 malignant and 60 benign). The enhancement patterns and morphologic features of each mass and nonmass lesion were analyzed, and the diagnostic performance was compared.
Results:
The sensitivity and specificity of the morphologic criteria were statistically significantly higher than those of the enhancement patterns (sensitivity: P = 0.0012, specificity: P = 0.0003), and the A(z) values for the three observers were 0.900, 0.919, and 0.900. The diagnostic accuracy of the morphologic criteria for both types of lesions was superior, and the differences were statistically significant (mass: P = 0.0001, nonmass: P = 0.0389).
Conclusion:
The analysis of the morphologic features of enhancing breast lesions alone showed higher diagnostic performance; therefore, signal intensity (SI) time-course data may not be needed to diagnose malignant breast lesions.
