Abstract #0578

Thakur S, Bartella L, Ishill N, Morris E, Liberman L, Dershaw D, Huang W, Hricak H, Koutcher J

Choline concentrations [Cho] and water-to-fat (W/F) ratios were calculated from proton MRS data of 42 patients with pathologically proven breast cancer (invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) or invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC)), who exhibited Cho-positive MRS findings. W/F ratio was obtained from the reference MRS scan without water suppression, while [Cho] was calculated using the water signal as internal reference. There is no significant difference in [Cho] between the IDC and ILC groups. However, W/F ratio is significantly higher in IDCs than ILCs, and performs significantly better compared to [Cho] in differentiating the two breast malignancies with high sensitivity and specificity.