3-T breast diffusion-weighted MRI by echo-planar imaging with spectral spatial excitation or with additional spectral inversion recovery: an in vivo comparison of image quality.
Megan C Jacobsen, Basak E Dogan, Beatriz E Adrada, Jeri Sue Plaxco, Wei Wei, Jong Bum Son, John D Hazle, Jingfei Ma
Author Information
Megan C Jacobsen: From the Departments of *Imaging Physics, †Diagnostic Radiology, and ‡Biostatistics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX.
OBJECTIVE: To compare conventional diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with spectral spatial excitation (cDWI) and an enhanced DWI with additional adiabatic spectral inversion recovery (eDWI) for 3-T breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). METHODS: Twenty-four patients were enrolled in the study with both cDWI and eDWI. Three breast radiologists scored cDWI and eDWI images of each patient for fat-suppression quality, geometric distortion, visibility of normal structure and biopsy-proven lesions, and overall image quality. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) for evaluable tissues were measured. Statistical tests were performed for qualitative and quantitative comparisons. RESULTS: Diffusion-weighted imaging with spectral spatial excitation yielded significantly higher CNR and SNR on a lesion basis, and higher glandular CNR and SNR and muscle SNR on a patient basis. Enhanced DWI also yielded significantly higher qualitative scores in all categories. No significant difference was found in ADC values. CONCLUSIONS: Enhanced DWI provided superior image quality and higher CNR and SNR on a lesion basis. Enhanced DWI can replace cDWI for 3-T breast DWI.
