Time-signal intensity curve analysis in breast MRI: still a role for lesion characterisation?

This poster is published under an open license. Please read the disclaimer for further details.

Congress:

ECR 2016

Poster Number:

B-1256

Type:

Scientific Paper

Keywords:

Breast, MR, Diagnostic procedure, Cancer

Authors:

M. Telegrafo, T. Introna, L. Coi, L. Rella, A. A. Stabile Ianora, G. Angelelli, M. Moschetta; Bari/IT

DOI:

10.1594/ecr2016/B-1256

DOI-Link:

https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/ecr2016/B-1256

Fig. 1: Figure 1 A-B. Case of TIC false positive in our series. Breast fibroadenoma...

Fig. 2: Figure 1 C. Case of TIC false positive in our series. Breast fibroadenoma...

Fig. 3: Figure 2 A-B. Case of TIC false negative in our series. Invasive ductal...

Fig. 4: Figure 2 C. Case of TIC false negative in our series. Invasive ductal carcinoma...

Purpose

To assess the role of time-signal intensity curve (TIC) obtained from dynamic post-contrast subtracted MRI in the differential diagnosis of breast lesions by comparing TIC analysis results with unenhanced and post-contrast MRI findings, having the histological data as the reference standard.

Methods and materials

298 breast lesions were evaluated by MRI. Both pre and post-contrast MR sequences without TIC analysis and TIC analysis were evaluated for lesion characterization in two different reading sessions. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and diagnostic accuracy for both imaging methods were calculated, having histological findings as the reference standard. The obtained values were then compared using the Mc Nemar test.

Results

168 out of 298 (56%) mass-like enhancing areas resulted benign and the remaining 130 (44%) malignant. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV values of 96%, 89 %, 92%, 87% and 97%, and 87%, 24%, 51%, 47% and 70% were obtained respectively for MRI without TIC analysis and for TIC analysis. The Mc Nemar test indicated a statistically significant difference between the two imaging methods (p<0.0001) (Figs. 1-2).

Conclusion

TIC analysis does not seem to add a significant contribution to differential diagnosis between malignant and benign lesions and could therefore represent a time-consuming and non-discriminatory additional evaluation for lesion characterization causing a decrease of MR specificity.

Personal information

References

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