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Abstract #2489

Detection of Breast Micro-Calcifications with MRI at 3T:

Riham Hossam El Din El Khouli1, David Thomasson1, Katarzyna Macura2, Sarah Mezban2, wei Liu3, Michael Jacobs2, Richard Edden4, Peter Barker2, David Bluemke1

1Radiology and Imaging Sciences, NIH/Clinical Center, Bethesda, MD, United States; 2Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; 3NIH/NCI; 4Cardiff University


Micro-calcifications (< 1 mm) are a fundamental marker of breast cancer by x-ray mammography, especially for the early diagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). However with MRI, micro-calcifications are rarely detected using standard pulse sequences. The purpose of this study was to optimize MRI approaches for detecting micro-calcifications in the breast in comparison to mammography and conventional MRI. We achieved high spatial resolution and good visualization of micro-calcifications using a proton density weighted ultra-short TE MRI sequence with radial reconstruction. Ultra-short TE MRI has potential for detection of mammographically visualized micro-calcifications.