Katsuhiro Kida, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Sachiko Goto, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Tomoka Doi RT, BS, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Masaki Ikeda RT, BS, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Tsutomu Kajitani, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Yoshiharu Azuma PhD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

It was suggested that the discrimination between calcium oxalate and phosphate is possible by measuring the slope of linear approximation of phase values of calcifications obtained by changing TE on high-pass filtered phase images.

In mammography, the presence of microcalcifications in breast tissues is of great importance since microcalcifications are mammographic characteristics of early breast cancer. The microcalcifications in breast disease have two distinct types, calcium oxalate and phosphate. It has been reported that microcalcifications with calcium oxalate were found only in benign cysts, whereas microcalcifications with calcium phosphate were associated with benign or malignant lesions. We previously reported the detection of clam shell (as simulating calcification) using high-pass filtered phase images of MRI. In this study, we furthermore discriminated the two types of calcifications of known components.    

A cup shaped gel phantom, containing calcium materials of known components which are 4 kidney stones of calcium oxalate, a kidney stone of calcium phosphate and a tooth, was made to simulate calcification in the breast. A tooth was employed as a comparison since its enamel has a high content of calcium phosphate. The slopes of linear approximation of phase values obtained by changing from 4.6 to 20.7 msec at 2.3 msec in-phase intervals were newly employed for type discrimination of calcifications in 3.0-T MR system.  

On the high-pass filtered phase image, calcium oxalate and phosphate were detected as hyperintense area. Furthermore, the phase values became higher as TE became longer. The slope of linear approximation of the calcium oxalate was larger than the calcium phosphate. The result indicates that calcium oxalate and phosphate are distinguishable with the slope of linear approximation. The diameters of stones were about 5 mm to 10 mm. This method might be useful for the discrimination between benign and malignant breast disease, although we need to discriminate smaller sizes of calcifications.

Kida, K, Goto, S, Doi, T, Ikeda, M, Kajitani, T, Azuma, Y, Type Discrimination of Calcifications by Phase Images of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Using a Breast Phantom.  Radiological Society of North America 2013 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, December 1 - December 6, 2013 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2013/13044456.html