Sensing mammographic density using single-sided portable Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging
• Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy

Background:

• Mammographic density (MD) is a significant risk factor for breast cancer.
• Accurate quantitative assessment of MD is crucial for risk stratification.
• Current methods for MD assessment often rely on qualitative or semi-quantitative analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a quantitative approach for sensing mammographic density (MD) using portable Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).
• To evaluate the agreement of T1, T2, and Diffusion (D) NMR techniques with gold standards and amongst themselves for breast tissue specimens.
• To establish the utility of portable NMR for continuous quantitative MD measurements.

Main Methods:

• Utilized single-sided portable NMR on breast tissue specimens with varying mammographic densities.
• Employed spin-lattice relaxation (T1), spin-spin relaxation (T2), and Diffusion (D) NMR sequences (saturation recovery, CPMG, stimulated echo, respectively).
• Correlated NMR-derived quantitative values with grayscale values from mammogram images.

Main Results:

• Strong correlations were observed between grayscale values and NMR techniques: R=0.91 for T1, R=0.91 for D, and R=0.93 for T2.
• High agreement was found between relative water content measurements derived from T1, T2, and D NMR techniques (R > 0.96).
• The NMR-based method demonstrated high reliability and reproducibility for quantifying MD in breast tissue samples.

Conclusions:

• Portable NMR, utilizing T1, T2, and D sequences, provides a reliable quantitative method for assessing mammographic density.
• This technique eliminates the need for additional qualitative analysis in determining MD distribution in breast tissues.
• The developed method is suitable for continuous quantitative measurements of MD in breast tissue samples.