Sunitha B. Thakur1,2, David D. Dershaw2,
Dilip Giri3, Junting Zheng4, Chaya Moskowitz, Jason A.
Koutcher1,2, Elizabeth A. Morris2
1Medical Physics, Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States; 2Radiology,
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States; 3Pathology,
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States; 4Epidemiology-Biostatistics,
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States
Diffusion
MRI is a noninvasive technique which provides information about early changes
in morphology and physiology of tissues by monitoring changes in the local
apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of water molecules. Recently,
diffusion-imaging has demonstrated potential in discriminating malignant from
benign breast tumors and in assessing progression of disease following
therapy. In this work we present the clinical usefulness of DWI and ADC
values. ADC measurements are useful to differentiate malignant lesions from
benign lesions yielding 98.4 % specificity and 90.9 % sensitivity with ADC
cut-off value of 1.28x10-3 mm2/s. ADC was less reliable
for differentiating invasive and non-invasive carcinomas.
Keywords