Double inversion recovery MR imaging of the breast: Efficacy in detection of breast cancer

Purpose To investigate the efficacy of the double inversion recovery sequence (DIR) in breast cancer detection. Materials and Methods Fifty‐six patients with biopsy‐proven breast cancers underwent preoperative breast MRI, including sagittal DIR and contrast‐enhanced T1‐weighted images (CE‐T1WI). Twenty‐four of the 56 patients additionally underwent sagittal T1WI and T2WI. The signal intensities of the lesion (L) and ipsilateral normal breast tissue (N) were measured. The lesion‐to‐normal ratio (LNR) was defined as LNR = 100(L‐N)/N. We compared LNRs among the four sequences, and then assessed the differences of LNRs between CE‐T1WI and DIR in each pathologic subgroup (IDC and non‐IDC group). Multiple regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of the signal‐to‐noise ratios (SNR) of the normal tissue or lesion and LNRs. Results The mean LNR did not differ significantly between DIR (58.65 ± 71.55) and CE‐T1WI (59.78 ±31.04), nor did the LNRs between DIR and CE‐T1WI in the two subgroups. The LNRs of DIR did not differ significantly between the two subgroups (P = 0.247). The SNR of lesions in DIR was correlated with the intraductal component percentage (r2 = 0.485, P = 0.037). Conclusion DIR and CE‐T1WI showed similar tumor detection efficacy, and DIR could complement dynamic MRI for detecting breast cancer without a contrast agent. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2014;39:51–58. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.