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Updated: Jun 8, 2025
Tracking the Mammary Architectural Features and Detecting Breast Cancer with Magnetic Resonance Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Published on: December 15, 2014
Utility of diffusion-weighted imaging in differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions
Allen Johnson1, Radha Sarawagi2, Rajesh Malik2
1Department of Neuroimaging and Interventional Radiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India.
Background:
Breast cancer presents a significant global health burden. An accurate differentiation between benign and malignant lesions is imperative for timely intervention. While dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) is highly sensitive, its specificity is limited. This has led to the exploration of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions.
Objectives:
The study aimed to explore the diagnostic utility of DWI in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions.
Method:
Assessment of 38 breast lesions using DWI with a b value of 800 s/mm2, performed with 3 Tesla MRI. The diagnostic performance of two different region of Interest (ROI) placement approaches was compared to obtain a feasible cut-off value of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) to differentiate between malignant and benign lesions. The histopathological reports were used as the gold standard.
Results:
ADC values of malignant lesions were significantly lower than those of benign lesions (0.84 × 10-3 mm2/s vs. 1.54 × 10-3 mm2/s). The average ADC measured using a small-sized 2D ROI including the darkest part in the ADC map, performed better than the large 2D ROI covering the entire lesion.
Conclusion:
Using a cut-off value of 0.98 × 10-3 mm2/s, ADC obtained high sensitivity (90%) and specificity (88.9%) in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions.
Contribution:
Utilising quantitative analysis of DWI with ADC value measurement, reliably distinguished between benign and malignant breast lesions in this cohort, especially when employing a higher b value of 800 s/mm2.
