Abstract
BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to determine whether the indicators obtained from intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) imaging can improve the characterization of benign and malignant breast masses compared with conventional dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI). PATIENTS AND METHODS: This study included 23 benign and 31 malignant breast masses of 48 patients. Main indicators were initial enhancement ratio (IER), time-signal intensity curve (TIC), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), tissue diffusivity (D), pseudodiffusivity (D*), and perfusion fraction (f). The discriminative abilities of the different models were compared by means of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and area under the ROC curve (AUC) analysis. RESULTS: D had the highest AUC (0.980), sensitivity (93.55%), specificity (100%), and diagnostic accuracy (96.36%). Both D and TIC could provide the independent predicted features for malignant breast masses. The combination of D and TIC had an AUC of up to 0.990. CONCLUSION: D of IVIM can effectively complement existing conventional DCE-MRI and DW-MRI in differentiating malignant from benign breast masses. IVIM combined with DCE-MRI is a robust means of evaluating breast masses.