Short Supine Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Assess Preoperative Breast Radiotherapy Boost Targets

Motivation: Breast MRI is performed prone and has not been optimized for supine treatment position and with the personalized radiation mold, limiting application for radiation treatment monitoringGoal(s): To evaluate the image quality and tumor size accuracy from short supine breast MRI (ssbMRI). Approach: ssbMRI studies were acquired before and after neoadjuvant radiotherapy along with mammography and ultrasound in 20 patients. Image quality of ssbMRI was evaluated by expert readers and image derived tumor sizes were correlated with other imaging modalities and final pathology. Results: ssbMR had acceptable image quality in 70% of the cases and best correlation with pathology. Impact: Breast MRI in supine positioning is of diagnostic quality despite the technical challenges for patients with breast cancer. This pilot study allows the development of a short supine diagnostic breast MRI for radiation planning and possibly fusion with CT.