Breast contrast-enhanced MR imaging: semiautomatic detection of vascular map

The diagnostic value of breast vascular maps using contrast-enhanced MR imaging has recently been explored. We propose a semiautomatic method to obtain breast vascular maps and to measure the number of blood vessels in the breast.

From January 2011 to December 2013, 188 patients underwent breast contrast-enhanced MRI; patients with unilateral and histopathologically confirmed breast lesions were included in this study; 123 patients had malignant lesions and 65 patients had benign tissue diagnoses. Breast semiautomatic vascular map detection was performed using Hessian matrix-based method and morphologic operators. Blood vessels detection was compared with radiologic interpretation findings to evaluate algorithm goodness. Increase in vascularity associated with ipsilateral cancer was also assessed. Chi square test was used to observe statistically significant difference.

A total of 1315 blood vessels were identified using semiautomatic procedure; 1034 were correctly classified (78.7 %), 261 (19.8 %) were incorrectly classified, and 20 (1.5 %) were missing. A significant association was found between one-sided increased breast vascularity and ipsilateral malignancy (p < 0.001).

In conclusion, detection of vascularity increase as risk factor for developing breast cancer could be performed with semiautomatic vascular mapping of contrast-enhanced MR imaging.