Contribution of Diffusion-Weighted Imaging to Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI in the Characterization of Breast Tumors

Contribution of Diffusion-Weighted Imaging to Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI in the Characterization of Breast Tumors
Sibel Kul, Aysegul Cansu, Etem Alhan, Hasan Dinc, Gurbuz Gunes, and Abdulkadir Reis
AJR 2011; 196:210-217

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Median ADCs of the benign and malignant lesions were 1.26 x 10^–3 mm²/s and 0.75 x 10^–3 mm²/s, respectively. Cutoff value of 0.92 x 10^–3 mm²/s for ADC provided 91.5% sensitivity and 86.5% specificity. DCE-MRI alone showed 97.9% sensitivity and 75.7% specificity. The combination of DCE-MRI with DWI provided 95.7% sensitivity and 89.2% specificity. The specificity of breast MRI improved by 13.5% (p = 0.063) without a significant decrease in the sensitivity (p = 1.000).

The combination of DWI and DCE-MRI has the potential to increase the specificity of breast MRI