Vignesh Arasu1, Ryan Cheng-Ying Chen1,
David Caryl Newitt1, Belinda Chang1, Hilda Tso1,
Nola M. Hylton1, Bonnie Nancy Joe1
1Department of Radiology and Biomedical
Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United
States
Breast
MRI, although sensitive for identifying cancer extent, has been criticized
for its poor specificity in staging preoperative patients, leading to
unnecessary biopsies and changes in surgical management. Signal enhancement ratio (SER) of
contrast-enhanced breast MRI lesions characterizes neoangiogenesis in cancer,
with high values predicting malignancy. We investigated if SER also predicts
malignancy in new lesions found secondary to the known primary cancer when
staging preoperative patients. Our results show that high total tumor SER
volume, washout SER volume, and high peak SER significantly predict secondary
malignant lesions. These results potentially improve the efficacy of
preoperative MRI for surgical management.