Diagnostic value of MR diffusion weighted imaging for breast benign and malignant lesions

Objective:The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of magnetic resonance diffusion-weighted imaging(DWI) for benign and malignant breast lesions.Methods:A total of 40 patients were retrospectively enrolled and analyzed in this study,including 22 patients of benign breast lesions and 18 of malignant lesions which were confirmed by pathological findings.DWI exams were performed in all subjects.The mean values of apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC) and relative apparent diffusion coefficient(rADC) were derived.Data were statistically analyzed using SPSS 16.0.Receiver operating curve(ROC) was used to get the diagnostic thresholds and the pathological findings were set as the gold standard.Results:The mean ADC values of the benign and malignant lesions were(1.55±0.35)×10-3mm2/s and(1.00±0.18)×10-3mm2/s,respectively.The mean rADC values were 0.82±0.19 and 0.52±0.08,respectively.There were significant differences between these two groups.The ROC curves were derived based upon the ADC and rADC values.The areas under the curves(AUC) were 0.927±0.04 and 0.965±0.03 for ADC and rADC measurement,respectively.The cut-off values were 1.17×10-3mm2/s and 0.66,respectively.The sensitivity and specificity were 90.9% and 88.9%,95.5% and 94.4%,respectively.The sensitivity,specificity and AUC of rADC were higher than that of ADC based measurements.Conclusions:DWI plays important role in the diagnosis of benign and malignant breast lesions.rADC values had better diagnostic efficacy than ADC values.