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Breast MR Imaging with High Spectral and Spatial Resolutions: Preliminary Experience¹

¹ From the Department of Radiology, MC2026, University of Chicago, 5841 S Maryland Ave, Chicago, IL 60637. Received June 11, 2001; revision requested August 3; revision received October 31; accepted December 20. Supported by National Cancer Institute grants RO1CA75476 and RO1CA78803, Army Breast Cancer Research Program grant DAMD 17-99-1-9121, and GE Medical Systems. Address correspondence to G.S.K. (e-mail: gskarczm@midway.uchicago.edu).

View larger version (50K): [in a new window]   Figure 1. Representative spectra from selected pixels before (dotted lines) and after (solid lines) contrast medium injection. Reference image shows a sagittal section through a breast with ductal carcinomas (sampled with spectra 1, 4, 5, and 7). All spectra are on the same scale and are referenced to the same carrier frequency. Frequency shifts due to B0 variation across the breast are apparent. The water peak (w) and fat peak (f) are labeled for each spectrum. Spectra in some pixels have approximately the same shape before and after contrast media injection (spectra 1, 2, 3, and 6), which indicates that effects of interimage motion have been minimized.

View larger version (35K): [in a new window]   Figure 2. A, Pixels with non-Lorentzian spectral shapes are overlaid on a sagittal reference water peak-height HSSR MR image of a breast with a lesion (arrow). B, Pixels in which the water resonance contains multiple resolved peaks are highlighted. Only peaks with signal-to-noise ratio of at least 2 were identified as secondary peaks. C, Pixels with strongly asymmetric water resonances are highlighted.

View larger version (91K): [in a new window]   Figure 3. Conventional and HSSR MR images of six healthy breasts. For each breast (one row), four sagittal images are shown. From left to right: T2-weighted fast spin-echo MR images, T1-weighted fat-saturated fast spin-echo MR images, water peak-height HSSR MR images, and fat peak-height HSSR MR images. Image signal intensities are adjusted to a similar level, and images are displayed with identical window settings. Conventional and HSSR MR images were each acquired in approximately 1.5-2.0 minutes.

View larger version (60K): [in a new window]   Figure 4. A-H, Sagittal images of breasts with carcinomas (arrows). Top row: Images in a 47-year-old patient with infiltrating ductal carcinoma, Scarff-Bloom-Richardson grade II, in the left breast. Bottom row: Images in a 47-year-old patient with infiltrating ductal carcinoma, Scarff-Bloom-Richardson grade II, with a moderate component of ductal carcinoma in situ, low grade, in the right breast. A and E are T2-weighted fast spin-echo MR images before contrast medium injection. B and F are T1-weighted fat-saturated MR images acquired 3 minutes after contrast medium injection. C and G are HSSR MR images proportional to water resonance peak height before contrast medium injection. D and H are water peak-height images obtained 1-3 minutes after the contrast medium injection. Evaluation by experienced radiologists suggested that vasculature and lesion edges are more clearly delineated on the HSSR MR images (C, G).

View larger version (104K): [in a new window]   Figure 5. Effects of contrast medium on HSSR MR images. These sagittal images were obtained of the lesion shown in Figure 4, A-D. A, Changes in the image synthesized from the first echo in the HSSR echo train are depicted. This image simulates a conventional T1-weighted subtraction MR image. B, Changes in peak height of the water magnitude spectra are depicted. C, Changes in water resonance frequency (in hertz) are depicted. Increase in frequency gives rise to higher signal intensity on the image. D, Pixels are highlighted in which the difference spectra (postcontrast spectrum minus precontrast spectrum) show spectrally heterogeneous changes.