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DWI of the Breast

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Diffusion MRI Outside the Brain

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Abstract

Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) of the breast has high sensitivity for breast cancer detection but lacks specificity for characterizing breast tumors. Hence, several studies have investigated the role of advanced MRI techniques, such as diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), to improve the specificity of MRI for the evaluation of breast lesions and to achieve improvements in positive predictive value (PPV). DWI is an unenhanced MRI sequence that measures the mobility of water molecules (Brownian motion) in vivo (in tissues) and provides different and potentially complementary information to DCE-MRI. Promising findings from preliminary DWI studies of the breast have shown significantly lower ADC measures for breast carcinomas than for benign breast lesions or normal tissue. Currently, there is controversy to define the most adequate threshold ADC values to differentiate between the different subtypes of invasive carcinomas or between intraductal carcinoma and invasive carcinoma. Besides, there are reports which have not shown significant differences in the behavior on DWI of benign and malignant tumors. DWI had some technical limitations and challenges such as patient movement, the analysis of diffuse and small lesions, to define the appropriate degree of diffusion sensitization to apply (b value) and to limit artifacts related to magnetic susceptibility and chemical shift. Besides, DWI opens a door for advanced clinical applications such as treatment response prediction, postchemotherapy monitorization, screening in high-risk population, or locoregional staging of breast cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Clínica Girona-Hospital Sta. Caterina, Girona, Spain

    Joaquim Barceló & Joan C. Vilanova

  2. Health Time Group, Jaén, Spain

    Antonio Luna (Chief of MRI)

Authors
  1. Joaquim Barceló
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  2. Joan C. Vilanova
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  3. Antonio Luna
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Correspondence to Joaquim Barceló .

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Barceló, J., Vilanova, J.C., Luna, A. (2012). DWI of the Breast. In: Diffusion MRI Outside the Brain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21052-5_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21052-5_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21051-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21052-5

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