• Mamoru Niitsu, Eriko Tohno, and Yuji Itai.
• Department of Radiology, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan. mnitsu@md.tsukuba.ac.jp
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2003 Sep 1; 18 (3): 310-4.

PurposeTo compare two fat suppression techniques of spectrally-selective inversion pulse (spectral presaturation with inversion recovery-SPIR) and spectral-spatial excitation pulse of water excitation (WE) for contrast-enhanced MR imaging of the breast.Materials And MethodsForty women with histologically-proven breast cancer were examined. Both pulse types were applied to postcontrast, axial, three-dimensional field echo sequence. Contrast noise ratios (CNR) of lesion-to-breast parenchyma, lesion-to-fat, and parenchyma-to-fat were determined. Qualitative image analysis using a four-point scale was also performed by two observers.ResultsAll the CNR values of obtained with WE techniques were significantly higher than those with SPIR. Qualitative analysis indicated that the WE images were statistically superior for the lesion-to-breast parenchyma contrast while being slightly inferior to the SPIR images for fat suppression homogeneity without statistical significance.ConclusionCompared to SPIR, the WE technique suppressed the subcutaneous fat signal more potently and improved the contrast of the enhanced breast lesion against the parenchyma and the subcutaneous fat. WE will be a powerful fat suppression strategy for enhanced MR imaging of the breast.Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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