Evaluating Simplified IVIM Diffusion Imaging for Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Pathological Correlation.

Area of Science:

• Radiology
• Medical Imaging
• Oncology

Background:

• Distinguishing malignant from benign breast lesions is crucial for appropriate patient management.
• Intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) offers insights into tissue microstructure and microcirculation.
• Simplified IVIM parameters require evaluation for their diagnostic utility in breast lesion characterization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the diagnostic performance of simplified IVIM-DWI parameters in differentiating malignant from benign breast lesions.
• To investigate the association between IVIM parameters and clinicopathological features of breast tumors.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 108 women with multi-b-value DWI MRI.
• Generation of IVIM maps (ADC_map, D, D*, f) using specialized software.
• Correlation of IVIM parameters with histopathological data and ROC analysis for diagnostic accuracy.

Main Results:

• Malignant lesions exhibited significantly lower ADC_map, D, and D* values compared to benign lesions.
• A combined logistic regression model of D, D*, and f achieved an AUC of 0.725, outperforming individual parameters.
• Histologic grade was the only clinicopathological feature significantly associated with IVIM metrics.

Conclusions:

• Simplified IVIM-DWI parameters, particularly diffusion-related ones, provide moderate accuracy in breast lesion differentiation.
• Multivariate analysis combining IVIM parameters enhances diagnostic performance.
• IVIM metrics may reflect tumor differentiation but have limited utility for predicting molecular subtypes.