The Application of MR Diffusion Weighted Imaging in Differentiation of Benign from Malignant Breast Lesions

Objective To discuss the technique of DWI and its diagnostic ability to differentiate benign from malignant breast lesions.Materials and Methods 50 cases(58 lesions)proved by pathologic results included 32 malignant lesions and 26 benign lesions.Siemens Magnetom Avanto 1.5T MR and a proprietary phase array breast coil were used.DWI was done with single shot SE EPI sequence,b=0s/mm2,400s/mm2,600s/mm2,800 s/mm2,1000s/mm2.Regard the upper bound of 95% confidence interval of ADC value as standard to diagnose benign and malignant,results were compared with pathology.Results DWI showed 92.3% benign lesions(24/26)and 96.9% malignant lesions(31/32).The ADC values had statistic significance among benign lesions,malignant lesions and normal tissues,(F-test,SNK-q-test,P0.05),b=1000,x=1.4276×10-3mm/s as standard to diagnose benign and malignant lesions,the sensitivity was 90.6%,specificity was 84.6% and accuracy was 87.9%.Conclusion DWI has high sensitivity to breast lesions.ADC value is an important parameter to diagnose breast benign and malignant lesions,especially using b=1000 s/mm2.