Comparison of Breast Pharmacokinetic Parameters in Fat-Water and Water Only Images

Pharmacokinetic parameters such as K^trans, k_ep and v_e can be estimated from contrast enhanced breast MRI using Tofts model. Previous simulation has shown that K^trans has a maximum bias of 82% at 5s temporal resolutions in the presence of fat. In this work, we have compared the PK parameters estimated from in-phase fat-water, and water-only images in 7 malignant and 4 benign lesions. The presence of fat introduced biases in K^trans and k_ep respectively of –0.02 min^-1 and 0.01 min^-1 in malignant lesions and –0.001 min^-1 and –0.003 min^-1 in benign lesions, but did not affect the classification of lesions.