Diagnostic Value of Ultrafast Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI in Assessing the Status of Axillary Lymph Node Metastasis in Breast cancer

This study investigated the feasibility of ultra-fast DCE-MRI in accurately assessing axillary lymph node (ALN) metastasis in breast cancer. Our results showed that maximum slope (MS) accurately estimated the axillary lymph node status using the early-stage data of ultra-fast DCE-MRI. Furthermore, larger size (≥10mm diameter) of ALN and absence of hilum in the ultrafast DCE-MRI was associated with ALN metastasis in breast cancer patients. Our study demonstrated that MS from ultrafast breast MRI is a potential imaging biomarker of ALN metastasis in breast cancer.