The utility of diffusion weighted MRI and apparent diffusion coefficient in characterization of breast masses

Purpose: This study aimed to emphasize the value of DW-MRI, ADC values in differentiation of various breast masses. Patients and methods: Between ''June 2013 to January 2015'', 50 consecutive patients with suspicious breast lesions underwent DW-MRI and ADC with the measurement of ADC values. All patients were examined with 1.5 Tesla MRI machine using breast coil. The images were obtained with b-values 0 and 750 s/mm(2). The ADC values were calculated for breast lesions and axillary LNs. The results were correlated with the histopathology results which were taken as gold standard. Results: In the studied 50 lesions, 20 were benign and 30 were malignant. The most frequent benign lesion was fibroadenoma (16%) and the most frequent malignant lesion was invasive duct carcinoma (36%). The mean ADC value for benign lesions was 1.6 +/- 0.33x10(-3) mm(2)/s while the mean ADC value for malignant lesions was 0.84 +/- 0.25 x 10(-3) mm(2)/s. The ROC curve showed that the best ADC cut-off value between benign and malignant lesions was 1.02 x 10(-3) mm(2)/s with sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy of 90%, 95%, 100%, 90.4% and 92% respectively. Conclusion: DW-MRI with ADC values measurement was considered a useful tool for accurate differentiation of various breast masses. (C) 2015 The Authors. The Egyptian Society of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. Production and hosting by Elsevier B. V.