Differentiating Benign from Malignant Breast Lesions and Molecular Subtypes Using MRI with a Continuous-Time Random-Walk Diffusion Model

Accurately differentiating breast cancer is crucial for clinical treatment. However, it is challenging due to the high heterogeneity of breast cancer. This study used a continuous-time random-walk (CTRW) diffusion model to characterize breast lesions and their molecular subtypes. The malignant lesions had significantly lower ADC, Dm, and α values than benign lesions. Significant differences were also found between luminal A and triple-negative groups in parameter β. And the combination of CTRW parameters yielded better performance in classifying breast cancer than ADC. Therefore, this study highlights that the CTRW parameters are superior to ADC in distinguishing breast lesions and molecular subtypes.