TY - JOUR
T1 - Diffusion-weighted breast MRI of malignancies with submillimeter resolution and immunity to artifacts by spatiotemporal encoding at 3T
AU - Solomon, Eddy
AU - Liberman, Gilad
AU - Nissan, Noam
AU - Furman-Haran, Edna
AU - Sklair-Levy, Miri
AU - Frydman, Lucio
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - Purpose: Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is increasingly used in evaluating breast cancer, as complement to DCE measurements of superior spatial resolution. Extracting fine morphological features in DWI is complicated by limitations that sequences such as EPI face, when applied to heterogeneous organs. This study investigates the ability of spatiotemporal encoding (SPEN) MRI to screen breast cancers and define diffusivity features at mm and sub-mm resolutions on a 3T scanner. Methods: Twenty-one patients with biopsy-confirmed breast cancer lesions were examined by T2-weighted and DCE protocols, by EPI-based DWI, and by SPEN-based protocols optimized for SNR, robustness and spatial resolution, respectively. Results: Excellent agreement was found between the diffusivity parameters measured by all SPEN protocols and by EPI, with the lower ADCs characteristic of tumors being readily detected. SPEN provided systematically better SNR and improved qualitative results, particularly when dealing with small lesions surrounded by fatty tissue, or lesions close to tissue/air interfaces. SPEN-derived ADC maps collected at sub-mm in-plane resolutions recapitulated the high-resolution morphology shown by lesions using more sensitive DCE protocols. Conclusion: Measurements on a patient cohort validated SPEN’s ability to quantify the diffusivity changes associated with the presence of breast cancers, while imaging the lesions with reduced distortions at sub-mm resolutions.
AB - Purpose: Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is increasingly used in evaluating breast cancer, as complement to DCE measurements of superior spatial resolution. Extracting fine morphological features in DWI is complicated by limitations that sequences such as EPI face, when applied to heterogeneous organs. This study investigates the ability of spatiotemporal encoding (SPEN) MRI to screen breast cancers and define diffusivity features at mm and sub-mm resolutions on a 3T scanner. Methods: Twenty-one patients with biopsy-confirmed breast cancer lesions were examined by T2-weighted and DCE protocols, by EPI-based DWI, and by SPEN-based protocols optimized for SNR, robustness and spatial resolution, respectively. Results: Excellent agreement was found between the diffusivity parameters measured by all SPEN protocols and by EPI, with the lower ADCs characteristic of tumors being readily detected. SPEN provided systematically better SNR and improved qualitative results, particularly when dealing with small lesions surrounded by fatty tissue, or lesions close to tissue/air interfaces. SPEN-derived ADC maps collected at sub-mm in-plane resolutions recapitulated the high-resolution morphology shown by lesions using more sensitive DCE protocols. Conclusion: Measurements on a patient cohort validated SPEN’s ability to quantify the diffusivity changes associated with the presence of breast cancers, while imaging the lesions with reduced distortions at sub-mm resolutions.
KW - breast MRI
KW - breast cancer
KW - diffusion-weighted imaging
KW - multiband spatiotemporal encoding
KW - sub-mm resolution
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85079895988&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/mrm.28213
DO - 10.1002/mrm.28213
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C2 - 32077516
AN - SCOPUS:85079895988
SN - 0740-3194
VL - 84
SP - 1391
EP - 1403
JO - Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
JF - Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
IS - 3
ER -