Breast DWI at 3 T: influence of the fat-suppression technique on image quality and diagnostic performance
Introduction
The role of diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) in the characterization and differentiation of breast lesions remains a subject of intensive research.1, 2, 3 In breast DWI, the use of an effective fat-suppression technique is especially critical. As the MRI signal has contributions from both water and fat components,4 it is essential to efficiently eliminate the lipid signal. The fat fraction in breast tissue can be high, and as the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of fat is much lower than that of water within lesions and/or normal glandular tissue,5 the presence of lipids may compromise an accurate ADC estimate.
Multiple fat-suppression techniques are currently available [short tau inversion recovery (STIR), spectral adiabatic inversion recovery (SPAIR), frequency-selective fat saturation (FatSat), water-selective excitation or the Dixon technique]. Each one is based on different physical phenomena,4, 5, 6 and previous studies have described their variable efficiency in lesion detection, and ADC estimates.7, 8, 9, 10
Given that the available techniques are not equally robust to the static magnetic field (B0) and radiofrequency magnetic field (B1) inhomogeneities, it is important to compare their performance on breast DWI at 3 T. Previous studies7, 8, 11 have used different techniques for fat suppression: Bogner et al.7 used STIR, whereas Peters et al.8 and El Khouli et al.11 used SPAIR, which makes direct comparisons difficult. For example, comparing results previously obtained by the present authors' group using a SPAIR-based sequence12 with those reported by Bogner et al.7 using STIR (b-values 50 and 1000 s/mm2 in both cases), similar ADC values were obtained for malignant and normal glandular tissue, but not for benign lesions, which could potentially be related to differences in fat-suppression efficiency.
Echo planar imaging (EPI) is a fast acquisition technique commonly used in breast DWI. It enables high imaging speed at the cost of being prone to chemical shift artefacts and geometric distortions.13 A common strategy to decrease these artefacts is to use parallel imaging (PI), an image reconstruction technique that makes use of sensitivity differences between different coil channels to perform spatial encoding, enabling a reduction in the number of phase-encoding steps. This in turn leads to a shorter readout window and hence reduced geometric distortion in the images.14 Another study developed by the present authors comparing DWI-STIR and -SPAIR at 3 T including PI15 [in press] revealed similar contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) except for benign lesions, and comparable ADC values for benign and malignant lesions.
However, some authors reported a decrease in SNR and CNR with PI as the echo time (TE) shortening achievable with PI can be insufficient to compensate for the g-factor noise penalty, which depends on the coil geometry and reflects the difference in sensitivity of the available channels along the phase encode direction.16, 17 Given that the present DWI sequence includes higher b-values (b = 2000 and 3000 s/mm2) the decision was made to exclude PI to gain SNR. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to compare quantitatively DWI-STIR and -SPAIR when no PI is used regarding SNR and CNR, fat-suppression uniformity, and ADC quantification for lesion differentiation and characterization in the clinical setting.
Section snippets
Patients and lesions
The present study is included in a wider investigation focusing on the application of DWI to study breast lesions, for which approval has been obtained from the institutional review board (code CES 276/13). This prospective study was performed on women with clinical indication for breast MRI. Written informed consent was obtained from all patients.
Women were excluded from this study if they (1) had undergone chemotherapy or radiotherapy 24 months prior to the MRI examination (three women with
Patients and lesion characteristics
Ninety-two women (mean ± standard deviation age of 48 ± 12 years; range 21–78 years) with 114 lesions were successfully scanned with DWI-STIR and -SPAIR. Thirty-seven women were post-menopausal. One hundred and four lesions were mass (91.2%) and 10 non-mass lesions (8.8%). Among the 114 lesions, 74 were classified as malignant and 40 as benign. Histological results were obtained for 99 lesions by biopsy and/or surgery. Mean size for benign lesions was 13.±9 mm, whereas for malignant lesions it
Discussion
Achieving adequate elimination of the lipid signal is challenging, especially at magnetic field strengths ≥3 T due to increased susceptibility artefacts, image ghosting, and larger chemical shifts that can be present when compared to 1.5 T.14 To address these issues while preserving image quality, the use of an adequate fat-suppression method is essential to mitigate image artefacts and promote adequate SNR and CNR.24 Also, unsuppressed fat signal interferes with the diffusivity characteristics
Conclusion
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The fat saturation technique used in breast DWI influences image quality.
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Fat suppression uniformity was better for DWI-STIR than -SPAIR.
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ADC quantification and cut-off values depend on the fat suppression used.
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Diagnostic performance between DWI-STIR and -SPAIR was not significantly different.
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DWI-SPAIR seems to be more accurate using as reference histological results.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank to the Ethics Committee of Hospital São João/Faculty of Medicine of Porto University (FMUP). This work was sponsored by Foundation of Science and Technology /Polytechnic Institute of Porto (grant number: SFRH/BD/50027/2009) and (grant number: PEst-OE/SAU/UI0645/2011).
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