Computer-aided kinetic information can help distinguish benign from malignant suspicious breast lesions on MRI, according to a study to be published in the American Journal of Roentgenology (September 2009, Vol. 193:3).
In the study, performed at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Dr. Constance Lehman and colleagues analyzed and compared the computer-aided evaluation variables of 125 suspicious breast lesions. Three different kinetic curves -- washout, plateau, and persistent -- were compared along with lesion morphology (size and shape).
The researchers found overlap in kinetic patterns across benign and malignant lesions, but the most suspicious curve type, washout, was useful in separating benign from malignant lesions: 45.7% were malignant, compared with 20% for plateau and 13.3% for persistent, Lehman wrote.
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