MRI in differential diagnosis of metastatic axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer / 中国介入影像与治疗学

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the value of axillary MRI in differential diagnosis of metastatic axillary lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer.Methods Axillary MRI was performed in 44 breast cancer patients proved by pathology.Long axis,short axis,cortex thickness,ADC value,hilus,margin,perifocal fat gap,signal intensity on DWI,enhancement pattern and time-signal intensity curve were analyzed.The diagnostic ability of long axis,short axis,cortex thickness and ADC value were analyzed with ROC curves.Results Twenty-four patients (24/44,54.55 ％) were proved with metastases axillary lymph nodes,the other 20 patients (20/44,45.45％) were negative.Long axis,short axis,cortex thickness,ADC value,hilus absence,irregular margin,fuzzy perifocal fat gap,high signal intensity on DWI and heterogeneous enhancement showed statistically significant between patients with metastatic and without metastatic axillary lymph nodes (all P＜0.05).The area under ROC curve of long axis,short axis,cortex thickness and ADC value were 0.797,0.765,0.848,0.749 respectively.Conclusion MRI plays an important role in differential diagnosis of axillary lymph nodes me tastasis.The cortex thickness larger than 0.54 cm can help to predict metastatic axillary lymph nodes.