Jeon-Hor Chen1, 2, Siwa Chan3, Dah-Cherng Yeh4, Chin-Kai Chang2, Li-Kuang Chen1, Wei-Fan Pan2, MuQing Lin1, Orhan Nalcioglu1, Min-Ying Lydia Su1
1Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, Department of Radiological Science, University of California , Irvine, CA, United States; 2Department of Radiology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; 3Department of Radiology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; 4Department of Surgery, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
For assessing the association between MRI-based density and cancer risk, a large dataset is required and combining MRI from multiple centers is the only feasible way to achieve this goal. The purpose of this work is to compare the measurement consistency of breast volume, fibroglandular tissue volume and percent density using 4 different MR scanners. Thirty-four healthy Asian female subjects were studied at two 1.5T and two 3T scanners. The correlation of FV between each pair of two MR scanners was very high, with all R2 ≥ 0.99. For some cases, however, the measurement variation was high, which was due to a large difference of one scanner compared to the other three scanners. The results show that when MR pulse sequences are optimized, and a well-developed segmentation method is used, consistent density parameters from the same women can be obtained on images acquired using different MR scanners. The positioning difference may account for some variation, and further optimization work may be developed to minimize its impact.
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