Faculty Bibliography

The purpose of this study is to report further about the statistically significant results from a prospective study, which suggests that fusion of prone F-18 Fluoro-deoxy-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance (MR) breast scans increases the positive predictive value (PPV) and specificity for patients in whom the MR outcome alone would be nonspecific. Thirty-six women (mean age, 43 years; range, 24-65 years) with 90 lesions detected on MR consented to undergo a FDG-PET scan. Two blinded readers evaluated the MR and the computer tomography (CT) attenuation-corrected prone FDG-PET scans side-by-side, then after the volumes were superimposed (fused). A semiautomatic, landmark-based program was used to perform nonrigid fusion. Pathology and radiologic follow-up were used as the reference standard. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy (with 95% confidence intervals) for MR alone, FDG-PET alone, and fused MR and FDG-PET were calculated. The median lesion size measured from the MR was 2.5 cm (range, 0.5-10 cm). Histologically, 56 lesions were malignant, and 15 were benign. Nineteen lesions were benign after 20-47 months of clinical and radiologic surveillance. The sensitivity of MR alone was 95%, FDG-PET alone was 57%, and fusion was 83%. The increase in PPV from 77% in MR alone to 98% when fused and the increase in specificity from 53% to 97% were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The false-negative rate on FDG-PET alone was 26.7%, and after fusion this number was reduced to 9%. FDG-PET and MR fusions were helpful in selecting which lesion to biopsy, especially in women with multiple suspicious MR breast lesions

The technical requirements for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the breasts are challenging because high temporal and high spatial resolution are necessary. This article describes the necessary equipment and pulse sequences for performing a high-quality study. Although imaging at 3-Tesla (T) has a higher signal-to-noise ratio, the protocol needs to be modified from the 1.5-T system to provide optimal imaging. The article presents the requirements for performing breast MRI and discusses techniques to ensure high-quality examinations on 1.5-T and 3-T systems

For many supervised learning tasks it may be infeasible (or very expensive) to obtain objective and reliable labels. Instead, we can collect subjective (possibly noisy) labels from multiple experts or annotators. In practice, there is a substantial amount of disagreement among the annotators, and hence it is of great practical interest to address conventional supervised learning problems in this scenario. In this paper we describe a probabilistic approach for supervised learning when we have multiple annotators providing (possibly noisy) labels but no absolute gold standard. The proposed algorithm evaluates the different experts and also gives an estimate of the actual hidden labels. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is superior to the commonly used majority voting baseline

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of our study was to describe the clinical features, imaging characteristics, pathologic findings and outcome of microinvasive ductal carcinoma in situ (DCISM). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The records of 21 women diagnosed with microinvasive ductal carcinoma in situ (DCISM) from November 1993 to September 2006 were retrospectively reviewed. The clinical presentation, imaging and histopathologic features, and clinical follow-up were reviewed. RESULTS: The 21 lesions all occurred in women with a mean age of 56 years (range, 27-79 years). Clinical findings were present in ten (48%): 10 with palpable masses, four with associated nipple discharge. Mean lesion size was 21mm (range, 9-65mm). The lesion size in 62% was 15mm or smaller. Mammographic findings were calcifications only in nine (43%) and an associated or other finding in nine (43%) [mass (n=7), asymmetry (n=1), architectural distortion (n=1)]. Three lesions were mammographically occult. Sonographic findings available in 11 lesions showed a solid hypoechoic mass in 10 cases (eight irregular in shape, one round, one oval). One lesion was not seen on sonography. On histopathologic examination, all lesions were diagnosed as DCISM, with a focus of invasive carcinoma less than or equal to 1mm in diameter within an area of DCIS. Sixteen (76%) lesions were high nuclear grade, four (19%) were intermediate and one was low grade (5%). Sixteen (76%) had the presence of necrosis. Positivity for ER and PR was noted in 75% and 38%. Nodal metastasis was present in one case with axillary lymph node dissection. Mean follow-up time for 16 women was 36 months without evidence of local or systemic recurrence. One patient developed a second primary in the contralateral breast 3 years later. CONCLUSION: The clinical presentation and radiologic appearance of a mass are commonly encountered in DCISM lesions (48% and 57%, respectively), irrespective of lesion size, mimicking findings seen in invasive carcinoma. Despite its potential for nodal metastasis (5% in our series), mean follow-up at 36 months was good with no evidence of local or systemic recurrence at follow-up. Knowledge of these clinical and imaging findings in DCISM lesions may alert the clinician to the possibility of microinvasion and guide appropriate management

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of MRI of the breast in cases in which mammographic or sonographic findings are inconclusive. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed images from 115 MRI examinations of the breast performed from 1999 to 2005 for the indication of problem-solving for inconclusive findings on a mammogram. Forty-eight of the 115 women (41.8%) were at high risk. We discerned whether sonography or MRI was used as an adjunctive tool and correlated the findings with those in the pathology database. RESULTS: The equivocal findings most frequently leading to MRI were asymmetry and architectural distortion. No suspicious MRI correlate was found in 100 of 115 cases (87%). These cases were found stable at follow-up mammography or MRI after a mean of 34 months. Fifteen enhancing masses (13%) that corresponded to the mammographic abnormality were seen on MR images. All masses identified at MRI were accurately localized for biopsy, and six malignant lesions were identified. Four of six malignant tumors were seen in one mammographic view only; two were seen on second-look ultrasound images. MRI had a sensitivity of 100% and compared with mammography had significantly higher specificity (91.7% vs 80.7%, p = 0.029), positive predictive value (40% vs 8.7%, p = 0.032), and overall accuracy (92.2% vs 78.3%, p = 0.0052). Eighteen incidental lesions (15.7%) were detected at MRI, and all were subsequently found benign. CONCLUSION: We found breast MRI to be a useful adjunctive tool when findings at conventional imaging were equivocal. Strict patient selection criteria should be used because of the high frequency of incidental lesions seen on MR images

The educational objectives for this self-assessment module on the interpretation and clinical applications of breast MRI are for the participant to exercise, self-assess, and improve his or her understanding of the imaging and clinical features of cancer and other breast masses on MRI