Influence of Contrast Arrival Time and Temporal Resolution in Diagnosis of Breast Cancer with DCE-MRI

Hendrik Laue¹, Anja Hennemuth¹, Volker Diehl^1,2, Markus Thorsten Harz¹, Horst Karl Hahn¹, Heinz-Otto Peitgen¹

The consensus on diagnosis of breast cancer with DCE-MRI is the use of sequences with high spatial and low temporal resolution, because of the in inhomogeneous distribution of pharmacokinetic properties in the tumor and the requirement to detect small lesions. The diagnostic in breast MRI today is therefore based on simple curve shapes rather than pharmacokinetic modeling. In this work, some pharmacokinetic modeling of contrast arrival time (CAT) and variation of low temporal resolution are carried out to identify pitfalls in the application and to identify techniques beneficial for the diagnostic performance of breast MRI.