CBCT comparable to MRI in classifying breast lesions

Wednesday, November 30 | 3:40 p.m.-3:50 p.m. | SSM01-05 | Arie Crown Theater

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have found that conebeam CT (CBCT) and MRI are comparable in their ability to classify breast lesions as benign or malignant.

In this Wednesday afternoon session, Dr. Margarita Zuley and colleagues will describe findings from a study they conducted that included CBCT and MR images taken between May 2008 and February 2011 from 50 women with 57 lesions. Five breast imaging radiologists classified every lesion as benign or malignant for each modality, then provided a subjective comparative quality assessment score on a five-point scale. The team compared results from the radiologists' classifications with histopathology results from biopsy (56 cases) and one-year negative imaging follow-up (one case).

Zuley's team found that the cohort included 24 cancers and 33 benign lesions. Across all readers, CBCT correctly classified 83.6% of the benign lesions and 94.2% of the cancers, while MRI correctly classified 86.1% of the benign lesions and 93.3% of the cancers. Subjective ratings, however, showed MRI to be better than CBCT for classifying benign and malignant lesions. Despite these subjective ratings, there was no statistical difference in the ability of the two modalities to correctly classify breast lesions, the group concluded.