Rani G. Sah1, Uma Sharma1, Rajinder Parshad2, Vurthaluru Seenu2, Naranamangalam Raghunathan Jagannathan1
1Department of NMR & MRI Facility, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi, India; 2Department of Surgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi, India
Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) was determined in breast tissue of 203 women including 141 patients with infiltrating ductal carcinoma, 34 benign and 28 normal volunteers using diffusion MRI at 1.5 T. The mean ADC of malignant lesion was significantly lower (1.03 0.18) compared to benign (1.63 0.28) and normal (1.80 0.12) breast tissues. The high cell proliferation in malignancy increases the cellular density, which decreases the extra-cellular volume water fraction and thereby decreases the ADC in malignancy. Cut-off values using ROC was also determined to differentiate malignant, benign and normal breast tissues.