In vivo 1H-MRS evaluation of malignant and benign breast diseases

This study was purposed to evaluate malignant and benign breast diseases on the basis of detecting choline compounds by in vivo localized 1H-MR spectroscopy. Thirty-five patients, prior to surgical treatments, including 19 cancers and 16 benign diseases were examined with breast imaging coil and inversion recovery 1H-PRESS (TR/TE/TI: 2000 ms/288 ms/160 ms) MR spectroscopy. Detection of choline was compared with the results of biopsy in each case. Choline was observed in all 19 cancer patients, while it was not detected in all other benign diseases. Detecting sensitivity of choline widely varied over the cancer cases in the range of 2.4–12.7 (average SNR value of 5.4) depending on the water/fat suppression and voxel size. Localized 1H-MRS using breast imaging coil can provide excellent sensitivity and spectral resolution to detect choline compounds present in reasonably small voxel (<1.5 cm3) of breast cancer lesion. Substantially this finding would be useful for differential diagnosis between malignant and benign breast diseases on the basis of choline observation by 1H-MRS when combined use with MR imaging.