TITLE:
Can semi-quantitative evaluation of uncertain (type II) time-intensity curves improve diagnosis in breast DCE-MRI?
AUTHORS:
Roberta Fusco, Salvatore Filice, Vincenza Granata, Ylenia Mandato, Annamaria Porto, Massimiliano D’Aiuto, Massimo Rinaldo, Maurizio Di Bonito, Mario Sansone, Carlo Sansone, Antonio Rotondo, Antonella Petrillo Petrillo
KEYWORDS:
Breast Cancer; Dynamic Contrast Enhanced-MRI; Time Intensity Curve; Tracer Kinetics; Semi-Quantitative Analysis
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering,
Vol.6 No.3A,
March
29,
2013
ABSTRACT: Objective/Background: Qualitative
assessment of uncertain (type II) time-intensity curves (TICs) in breast
DCE-MRI is problematic and operator dependent. The aim of this work is to
evaluate if a semi-quantitative assessment of uncertain TICs could improve
overall diagnostic performance. Methods: In this study 49 lesions from 44
patients were retrospectively analysed. Per
each lesion one region-of-interest (ROI)- averaged TIC was qualitatively
evaluated by two radiologists in consensus: all the ROIs resulted in type II
(uncertain) TIC. The same TICs were semi-quantitatively re-classified on the
basis of the difference between the signal intensities of the last-time-point
and of the peak: this difference was classified according to two different
cut-off ranges (±5% and ±3%). All patients were cytological or histological
biopsy proven. Fisher test and McNemar test were performed to evaluate if
results were statistically significant (p respectively while using ±5% were
58%, 96%, 94% and 68% respectively. Using the ±5% cut-off 26/28 (93%) TICs
were correctly reclassified while using the ±3% cut-off 34/38 (90%) TICs were
correctly reclassified (p