3D amide proton transfer-weighted imaging may be useful for diagnosing early-stage breast cancer: a prospective monocentric study

European Radiology Experimental

Table 3 Comparison of different parameters between benign and malignant lesions

	Benign lesions (n = 43)	Malignant lesions (n = 37)	p-value	ROC-AUC (95% CI)
Parameters from APTWI
MTR_asym (%)	2.7 ± 1.2	1.2 ± 0.8	< 0.01	0.816 (0.724–0.909)
Semiquantitative parameters
PE (%)	158.9 ± 71.0	186.6 ± 63.6	0.06	0.628 (0.508–0.748)
TTP (s)	227.1 ± 72.3	162.5 ± 75.0	< 0.01	0.727 (0.616–0.838)
Wash-in rate (%)	67.9 ± 44.0	102.2 ± 51.7	< 0.01	0.699 (0.587–0.810)
Wash-out rate (%)	9.5 ± 11.0	15.7 ± 14.3	0.03	0.665 (0.547–0.782)
Pharmacokinetic parameters
K_trans (min⁻¹)	0.1 ± 0.1	0.3 ± 0.2	< 0.01	0.737 (0.619–0.834)
K_ep (min⁻¹)	0.5 ± 0.3	1.1 ± 0.9	< 0.01	0.746 (0.628–0.842)
V_e	0.3 ± 0.2	0.3 ± 0.1	0.32	0.580 (0.457–0.696)
iAUC (×10⁻³ mm²/s)	0.1 ± 0.1	0.2 ± 0.1	0.06	0.633 (0.510–0.744)

APTWI Amide proton transfer-weighted imaging, ROC-AUC Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, iAUC Initial area under the gadolinium concentration-time curve, K_ep Rate constant, K_trans Volume transfer constant, MTR_asym Magnetization transfer asymmetry, PE Peak enhancement, TTP Time to peak, V_e Extravascular extracellular volume fraction