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Comparison of breast density measured on MR images acquired using fat‐suppressed versus nonfat‐suppressed sequences
Author(s) -
Chang Daniel H.E.,
Chen JeonHor,
Lin Muqing,
Bahri Shadfar,
Yu Hon J.,
Mehta Rita S.,
Nie Ke,
Hsiang David J. B.,
Nalcioglu Orhan,
Su MinYing
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.3646756
Subject(s) - breast density , mammography , mammographic density , nuclear medicine , medicine , breast cancer , materials science , nuclear magnetic resonance , biomedical engineering , radiology , physics , cancer
Purpose: To investigate the difference of MR percent breast density measured from fat‐suppressed versus nonfat‐suppressed imaging sequences.Methods: Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with and without fat suppression was acquired from 38 subjects. Breasts were divided into subgroups of different morphological patterns (“central” and “intermingled” types). Breast volume, fibroglandular tissue volume, and percent density were measured. The results were compared using nonparametric statistical tests and regarded as significant at p < 0.05.Results: Breast volume, fibroglandular volume, and percent density between fat‐suppressed and nonfat‐suppressed sequences were highly correlated. Breast volumes measured on these two sequences were almost identical. Fibroglandular tissue volume and percent density, however, had small (<5%) yet significant differences between the two sequences—they were both higher on the fat‐suppressed sequence. Intraobserver variability was within 4% for both sequences and different morphological types. The fibroglandular tissue volume measured on downsampled images showed a small (<5%) yet significant difference.Conclusions: The measurement of breast density made on MRI acquired using fat‐suppressed and nonfat‐suppressed T1W images was about 5% difference, only slightly higher than the intraobserver variability of 3%–4%. When the density data from multiple centers were to be combined, evaluating the degree of difference is needed to take this difference into account.