Detection of axillary lymph node metastasis with diffusion-weighted MR imaging

Mami Iima; Masako Kataoka; Ryosuke Okumura; Kaori Togashi

doi:10.1016/j.clinimag.2014.04.016

Detection of axillary lymph node metastasis with diffusion-weighted MR imaging

Clin Imaging. 2014 Sep-Oct;38(5):633-6. doi: 10.1016/j.clinimag.2014.04.016. Epub 2014 May 9.

Authors

Mami Iima¹, Masako Kataoka², Ryosuke Okumura³, Kaori Togashi²

Affiliations

¹ Dept of Diagnostic Radiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of medicine, Kyoto, Japan; Dept of Radiology, Kitano Hospital, Osaka, Japan. Electronic address: mamiiima@kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp.
² Dept of Diagnostic Radiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
³ Dept of Radiology, Kitano Hospital, Osaka, Japan.

PMID: 24908365
DOI: 10.1016/j.clinimag.2014.04.016

Abstract

The feasibility of detecting axillary lymph node (LN) metastases with diffusion-weighted MR imaging was retrospectively evaluated. The relative ADC (with b values of 0 and 1000 s/mm(2)) between LNs in each axillary space was calculated (n=75). The area, the long and short diameter of the metastatic LNs were compared to those of non-metastatic LNs. The relative ADC value of metastatic LNs was significantly lower than that of non-metastatic LNs (P=.00). The long and short diameter LN diagnostic performance was superior to that of mean ADC and relative ADC (AUC: 0.84, 0.80 versus 0.64, 0.03), suggesting usefulness of diameter over ADC.

Keywords: Apparent diffusion coefficient; Axillary lymph node; Breast cancer; Diffusion-weighted image.

MeSH terms

Adult
Aged
Axilla
Breast Neoplasms / diagnosis*
Breast Neoplasms / secondary*
Diagnostic Imaging*
Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
Female
Humans
Lymph Nodes / pathology*
Lymphatic Metastasis / diagnosis
Middle Aged
Reproducibility of Results
Retrospective Studies