ABSTRACT
Objective: to evaluate the role of Diffusion-weighted imaging [DWI] and the Apparent Diffusion Coefficient [ADC] values in characterizing benign and malignant breast Lesions
Patients And Methods: the imaging data of thirty nine female patients [mean age of 48 years] who underwent breast MRI using the conventional pulse sequences, DWI and calculated ADC values as well as the results of the dynamic contrast enhancement [DCE] study were all analyzed and correlated with the results of histopathological evaluation
Results: forty six breast lesions were detected in thirty nine patients included in this study. According to the histopathological analysis, there were 27 malignant lesions [58.69%] and 19 benign lesions [41.31%]. The malignant lesions showed a mean ADC value of 0.93 +/- 0.42 and the benign lesions showed a mean ADC value of 1.54 +/- 0.43. The receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve showed that the best ADC cut-off value to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions was 1.26 x 10[-3] mm[2]/s with sensitivity and specificity of 89% and 94.7% respectively
Conclusion: the diffusion-weighted sequence is useful in the differentiation between malignant and benign breast lesions, increasing the specificity of breast MRI. This sequence is performed with no significant increase in the acquisition time and should be included in the standard breast MRT protocol