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Comparison of Radiologist-Assigned Categories and Quantitative Measures of Background Parenchymal Enhancement on Breast MRI

Niell, B. L.; Abdalah, M.; Stringfield, O.; Pereira, M.; Ataya, D.; Balagurunathan, Y.; Gillies, R. J.; Raghunand, N.

2020-03-10 radiology and imaging
10.1101/2020.03.09.20031153 medRxiv
Show abstract

Background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) on multi-parametric breast magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) reflects the volume and intensity of gadolinium uptake. We developed a semi-automated segmentation algorithm to extract and quantify measures of BPE and investigated the agreement of computed measures of BPE with radiologist-assigned categories. We retrospectively identified 123 high risk patients with breast mpMRI performed for screening indications. Pre- and post-gadolinium T1-weighted series with and without fat suppression were co-registered. Using Otsus method and an active contours method, the breast tissue was segmented from the chest wall and non-fat voxels were clustered to identify the amount of fibroglandular tissue. Median and inter-quartile ranges for the absolute volume of BPE (BPE cm3) and the percentage of BPE (BPE%) using a threshold PE of 30% were computed within the segmented FGT on the first post-contrast phase. Students t-test was used to evaluate BPE volume and BPE% by radiologist-assigned categories. Both BPE volume and BPE% differed significantly between minimal/mild and moderate/marked radiologist assigned categories (p=0.030 and 0.004, respectively). Using our newly developed semi-automated segmentation pipeline, we quantified fibroglandular tissue and BPE. The overlapping ranges of quantitative BPE corresponding to the radiologist-assigned BPE categories showcases the inter-reader variability with visual estimation of BPE.

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