Correlation between Diffusion-Weighted Imaging and Apparent Diffusion Coefficient with Breast Cancer Histopathological Grading, MONA E. MAREY, MAHA HELAL, ASHRAF SELIM, IMAN GOUDA, MOHAMED EL-AZAB, TALAAT HASSAAN and RANIA ZEITOUN
Abstract
Purpose: To correlate the Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) value using Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI) with breast cancer histopathological grading.
Material and Methods: 61 patients with histopathologically proved malignant breast lesions from August 2014 till April 2015 were enrolled in this study which undergoing breast MRI. MRI examination included T1 and T2 W sequences, DWI and DCE-MRI. ADC values are correlated with the histological grades.
Results: Histopathological grade revealed that majority of patients 3 8/61 (76.56%) were GII whereas 8/61 (13%) were GI and 15/61 (24.6%) were GIII. Mean ADC value of all the examined lesions evaluated was 0.6 X 10–3mm2/s (range 0.1-1.1) which was statistically significant higher than normal parenchyma (1.59-}0.27 X 10–3mm2/s) (p<0.0001). The mean ADC values of histopathological grade I, II and III were 0.85, 0.66 and 0.4 X 10–3mm2/s respectively. ADC value of tumours with high grade (III) was significantly lower than ADC value with lower grade (I & II) (p=0.00278). There was significant difference in the mean ADC value of tumours of grade I and III (p=0.00014) and grade II and III (p=0.0039). However, there was no significant difference between grade I and II (p=0. 137).
Conclusion: Histopathological grade is one of the impor-tant factors used in selection and planning of breast cancer treatment. A significant inverse correlation between ADC value and tumor grading was detected.