Ultrafast breast MRI for predicting lymph node metastases in breast cancers

Motivation: Studies of ultrafast dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI were previously focused primarily on differentiating between benign and malignant breast tumors, with little research on lymph node metastases. Goal(s): We searched for noninvasive biomarkers to predict lymph node metastases in patients with breast cancer using ultrafast DCE-MRI. Approach: Ultrafast DCE-MRI was performed using a GRASP sequence, and the proprietary kinetic indicators were calculated to quantitatively diagnose lymph node metastases. Results: The relative peak enhancement of patients with lymph node metastasis was significantly higher than that of those without metastasis (area under the curve: 0.671)Impact: In this feasibility study, we preliminarily explored the role of ultrafast breast MRI in diagnosing lymph node metastasis in patients with infiltrating ductal carcinoma. We found that relative peak enhancement can be used to predict lymph node metastasis.