Quantitative characterization of breast lesions and normal fibroglandular tissue using compartmentalized diffusion-weighted model: comparison of intravoxel incoherent motion and restriction spectrum imaging

Abstract

Background: To compare the compartmentalized diffusion-weighted models, intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) and restriction spectrum imaging (RSI), in characterizing breast lesions and normal fibroglandular tissue.

Methods: This prospective study enrolled 152 patients with 157 histopathologically verified breast lesions (41 benign and 116 malignant). All patients underwent a full-protocol preoperative breast MRI, including a multi-b-value DWI sequence. The diffusion parameters derived from the mono-exponential model (ADC), IVIM model (Dt, Dp, f), and RSI model (C₁, C₂, C₃, C₁C₂, F₁, F₂, F₃, F₁F₂) were quantitatively measured and then compared among malignant lesions, benign lesions and normal fibroglandular tissues using Kruskal-Wallis test. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used for the pairwise comparisons. Diagnostic models were built by logistic regression analysis. The ROC analysis was performed using five-fold cross-validation and the mean AUC values were calculated and compared to evaluate the discriminative ability of each parameter or model.

Results: Almost all quantitative diffusion parameters showed significant differences in distinguishing malignant breast lesions from both benign lesions (other than C₂) and normal fibroglandular tissue (all parameters) (all P < 0.0167). In terms of the comparisons of benign lesions and normal fibroglandular tissues, the parameters derived from IVIM (Dp, f) and RSI (C₁, C₂, C₁C₂, F₁, F₂, F₃) showed significant differences (all P < 0.005). When using individual parameters, RSI-derived parameters-F₁, C₁C₂, and C₂ values yielded the highest AUCs for the comparisons of malignant vs. benign, malignant vs. normal tissue and benign vs. normal tissue (AUCs = 0.871, 0.982, and 0.863, respectively). Furthermore, the combined diagnostic model (IVIM + RSI) exhibited the highest diagnostic efficacy for the pairwise discriminations (AUCs = 0.893, 0.991, and 0.928, respectively).

Conclusions: Quantitative parameters derived from the three-compartment RSI model have great promise as imaging indicators for the differential diagnosis of breast lesions compared with the bi-exponential IVIM model. Additionally, the combined model of IVIM and RSI achieves superior diagnostic performance in characterizing breast lesions.

Keywords: Breast lesion; Diffusion-weighted imaging; Intravoxel incoherent motion; Restriction spectrum imaging.