• Marco Moschetta, Michele Telegrafo, Giulia Capuano, Leonarda Rella, Arnaldo Scardapane, Giuseppe Angelelli, and Amato Antonio Stabile Ianora.
• DIM - Interdisciplinary Department of Medicine - Section of Diagnostic Imaging- "Aldo Moro" University of Bari Medical School -Piazza Giulio Cesare 11 - 70124 Bari, Italy. Electronic address: marco.moschetta@uniba.it.
• Magn Reson Imaging. 2013 Oct 1; 31 (8): 1292-7.

ObjectivesTo assess the contribute of intra-prosthetic MRI virtual navigation for evaluating breast implants and detecting implant ruptures.MethodsForty-five breast implants were evaluated by MR examination. Only patients with a clinical indication were assessed. A 1.5-T device equipped with a 4-channel breast coil was used by performing axial TSE-T2, axial silicone-only, axial silicone suppression and sagittal STIR images. The obtained dicom files were also analyzed by using virtual navigation software. Two blinded radiologists evaluated all MR and virtual images. Eight patients for a total of 13 implants underwent surgical replacement. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated for both imaging strategies.ResultsIntra-capsular rupture was diagnosed in 13 out of 45 (29%) implants by using MRI. Basing on virtual navigation, 9 (20%) cases of intra-capsular rupture were diagnosed. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV values of 100%, 86%, 89%, 62% and 100%, respectively, were found for MRI. Virtual navigation increased the previous values up to 100%, 97%, 98%, 89% and 100%.ConclusionIntra-prosthetic breast MR virtual navigation can represent an additional promising tool for the evaluation of breast implants being able to reduce false positives and to provide a more accurate detection of intra-capsular implant rupture signs.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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