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Published on: December 15, 2014
Evaluation of background parenchymal enhancement on breast MRI: a systematic review
Bianca Bignotti1, Alessio Signori2, Francesca Valdora3
12 Department of Health Sciences, Institute of Statistics, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
Objective:
To perform a systematic review of the methods used for background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) evaluation on breast MRI.
Methods:
Studies dealing with BPE assessment on breast MRI were retrieved from major medical libraries independently by four reviewers up to 6 October 2015. The keywords used for database searching are "background parenchymal enhancement", "parenchymal enhancement", "MRI" and "breast". The studies were included if qualitative and/or quantitative methods for BPE assessment were described.
Results:
Of the 420 studies identified, a total of 52 articles were included in the systematic review. 28 studies performed only a qualitative assessment of BPE, 13 studies performed only a quantitative assessment and 11 studies performed both qualitative and quantitative assessments. A wide heterogeneity was found in the MRI sequences and in the quantitative methods used for BPE assessment.
Conclusion:
A wide variability exists in the quantitative evaluation of BPE on breast MRI. More studies focused on a reliable and comparable method for quantitative BPE assessment are needed. Advances in knowledge: More studies focused on a quantitative BPE assessment are needed.
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