• Ting Li, Tao Yu, Lyu Li, Lunbo Lu, Yaoyao Zhuo, Jingge Lian, Yun Xiong, Dexing Kong, and Kangan Li.
• Department of Radiology, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai, 201620, P.R. China.
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2018 Nov 1; 48 (5): 1358-1366.

BackgroundBreast MRI is a sensitive imaging technique to assess breast cancer but its effectiveness still remains to be improved.PurposeTo evaluate the diagnostic performance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), and quantitative dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI in differentiating malignant from benign breast lesions independently or jointly and to explore whether correlations exist among these parameters.Study TypeRetrospective.PopulationIn all, 106 patients with breast lesions (47 malignant, 59 benign).SequenceDKI sequence with seven b values and quantitative DCE sequence on 3.0T MRI.AssessmentDiffusion parameters (mean diffusivity [MD], mean diffusivity [MK], and apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC]) from DKI and DWI and perfusion parameters from DCE (Ktrans , kep , ve , and vp ) were calculated by two experienced radiologists after postprocessing. Disagreement between the two observers was resolved by consensus.Statistical TestsThe parameters in benign and malignant lesions were compared by Student's t-test. The diagnostic performances of DKI and quantitative DCE, either alone or in combination, were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The Spearman correlation test was used to evaluate correlations among the diffusion parameters and perfusion parameters.ResultsMK, MD, ADC, Ktrans , and kep values were significantly different between breast cancer and benign lesions (P < 0.05). MK from DKI demonstrated the highest AUC of 0.849, which is significantly higher than ADC derived from conventional DWI (z = 3.345, P = 0.0008). The specificity of DCE-MRI-derived parameters was improved when combining diffusion parameters, such as ADC and MK. The highest diagnostic specificity (93.2%) was obtained when kep and ADC were combined. kep was correlated moderately positively with MK (r = 0.516) and moderately negatively with MD (r = -0.527). Ktrans was weakly positively correlated with MK with an r of 0.398 and weakly negatively correlated with MD with an r of -0.450.Data ConclusionDKI is more valuable than conventional DWI in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions. DKI exhibits promise as a quantitative technique to augment quantitative DCE-MRI. Diffusion parameters derived from DKI were statistically correlated with perfusion parameters from quantitative DCE-MRI.Level Of Evidence3 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2018;47:1358-1366.© 2018 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

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