Diagnosis of breast cancer with multidetector computed tomography: analysis of optimal delay time after contrast media injection

Abstract Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate the optimal delay time after a contrast media injection for multidetector computed tomography (MD-CT) images in the diagnosis of breast cancer patients. Materials and Methods Thirty-one patients who underwent MD-CT for their preoperative examination and who had postoperatively confirmed pathology were enrolled. Four-phase images of dynamic contrast enhanced study were acquired using four-detector MDCT. All cases were mammographically classified into two groups according to BI-RADS: nondense and dense groups. The CT value of the background mammary gland, background breast enhancement (BBE), and tumor-background mammary gland contrast (TBC) were compared between the two groups. Results The CT value of the dense group was significantly higher than that of the nondense group in all phases. BBE in both nondense and dense groups showed no significant differences in any of the phases. In the nondense group, TBC was significantly higher in both the second and the third phases than in the first phase, while in the dense group, TBC was significantly higher in the second phase than in the first and third phases. Conclusion The optimal delay time to depict breast cancer is 80 s after a contrast media injection, regardless of the density level of the background mammary gland.