Daniel Han-en Chang1, Jeon-Hor Chen1,2,
Shadfar Bahri1, Hon J. Yu1, Ke Nie1, Orhan
Nalcioglu1, Min-Ying Lydia Su1
1Tu & Yuen Center for Functional
Onco-Imaging, University of California, Irvine, CA, United States; 2Department
of Radiology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
Mammographic
density is known to be strongly associated with the risk of breast cancer
development, but using mammography to characterize breast density does not provide
true volumetric information. MRI-based methods on the other hand provide
promising alternatives, but may be affected by technical factors such as the
choice of pulse sequences. We imaged breasts with two commonly used pulse
sequences, fat-suppression and non-fat-suppression, and calculated their
densities with an MRI-based method developed previously by our lab. We found
that their densities are highly correlated and that fat-saturated images tend
to have stronger relative tissue contrast.