Invasive ductal carcinoma: correlation of apparent diffusion coefficient value with pathological prognostic factors

Abstract

The aim of this study was to correlate the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value of invasive ductal carcinoma with pathological prognostic factors. A prospective study was conducted on 59 untreated female patients (mean age 46 years) with invasive ductal carcinoma. All patients were examined at 1.5 Tesla using dedicated bilateral breast coil. They underwent diffusion weighted MR imaging of the breast using a single shot echo planar imaging with a b-factor of 200 and 400 sec/mm2. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps were reconstructed. The ADC value of the breast cancer was calculated and correlated with the pathologic prognostic factors (tumor size, grade and lymph nodes). The mean ADC values of invasive ductal carcinoma were significantly lower in patients with high grade, large breast cancer as well as those with axillary lymph nodes metastasis in a statistically significant way (p = 0.001 for the three factors). The mean ADC value of invasive ductal carcinoma was correlated with histologic grade (r = -0.675, p = 0.001), tumor size (r = 0.504, p = 0.001) and showed lower ADC values with positive lymph node metastasis. Apparent diffusion coefficient value is correlated with pathological parameters of invasive ductal carcinoma. The lower ADC values are associated with higher histological grade, larger tumor size and presence of axillary lymph nodes. So, the ADC value can be considered as a promising prognostic parameter that may identify highly aggressive breast cancer.

Correlations between Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Values and Prognostic Factors of Breast Cancer

“…22 They associated lower ADC values with the presence of axillary lymph nodes metastasis. These disparate results may be explained by the diŠerence in study populations because larger tumor size is a risk factor for lymph node metastasis.…”

Correlation of the apparent diffusion coefficiency values on diffusion-weighted imaging with prognostic factors for breast cancer

“…Few studies have analysed the relationship between prognostic factors and ADC values [1,8,23]. Razek et al [23] reported an association of lower ADC values with pathological prognostic factors, including higher histological grade, larger tumour size and presence of axillary lymph nodes.…”

“…Razek et al [23] reported an association of lower ADC values with pathological prognostic factors, including higher histological grade, larger tumour size and presence of axillary lymph nodes. Jeh et al [8] reported an association of low ADC value with positive expression of ER and negative expression of HER2 in 107 women with IDC.…”

Diagnostic Significance of Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Values with Diffusion Weighted MRI in Breast Cancer: a Meta-Analysis

“…Additionally, as for the step of screening, a flow chart of the study selection process was displayed in Figure 1. Initially, a total of 603 papers were selected from the 9 databases through screening the title and key words (Nakajo et al, 2010;Razek et al, 2010;Jeh et al, 2011;Nakai et al, 2011;Choi et al, 2012;Fornasa et al, 2012;Luo et al, 2012;Kamitani et al, 2013;Luo et al, 2013). Followed by excluding the duplicates (n=2), letters, reviews or meta-analysis (n=128), non-human studies (n=137), and the studies not related to research topics (n=145), the left studies (n=191) were reviewed and additional 179 studies were excluded in that they were not case-control or cohort study (n=48), not relevant to diffusion MRI (n=62), or not relevant to BC (n=69).…”