Reliability and repeatability of texture features extracted from quantitative T1 & T2 of fresh breast tumour specimens at 3T

Motivation: Quantitative T1/T2 is known to alter in the presence of breast tumours, and texture analysis offers a measure to characterise unique tumour morphology. Goal(s): We aimed to determine the reliability and repeatability of texture features extracted from T1/T2 images across acquisitions. Approach: Five repeated acquisitions of T1/T2 were performed on 20 breast tumours to derive texture features of Mean, Standard deviation, Kurtosis, Skewness, and Entropy. Results: There was excellent reliability and repeatability in all T1 texture features, except moderate reliability in Entropy. There was good to excellent reliability and excellent repeatability for most T2 textures, except Kurtosis and Skewness. Impact: The reliability and repeatability of texture features extracted from relaxation property maps serves as a corner stone towards higher order analysis for breast cancer, to support clinical decision with confidence.