Field Cycling Imaging: a novel very low field modality to characterize breast cancer

Motivation: Field Cycling Imaging (FCI) has never been used in clinics and its capability in medical diagnosis has not yet demonstrated. Goal(s): Our goal was to demonstrate the capabilities of FCI as an imaging modality to diagnose breast cancer by measuring the T1 variations at low field from 2.3 to 200 mT. Approach: Ten patients were imaged with our recent FCI prototype scanner and images were compared with standard clinical imaging and histology. Results: FCI provides relevant biomarkers of molecular dynamics that detect tumours and discriminate invasive from non-invasive tumours. In addition, FCI is insensitive to breast density and provides accurate tumour delineation. Impact: FCI, which uses variant low field strengths, could complement clinical imaging without contrast agents non-invasively and could improve the estimation of tumour size and resection margins, even for dense breasts, including DCIS which is often under/over-estimated in clinical imaging.