Application of 3.0T MR vascular imaging in studying characteristics and related factors of blood supply around breast cancer

Objective To study the characteristics of blood supply around the breast cancer and correlation with tumor size,shape,apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC) values and pathological grading. Methods Ninty-four cases of breast cancer confirmed by histopathology and examined by 3.0T MR dynamic enhanced scan were enrolled into this study.Siemens 3.0T magnetic resonance instrument was used for the morphological data as well as the maximum diameter of lesions,ADC values,and pathological classification data were obtained from the clinical material.ADW4.4 workstation was adopted to subtract the scan image from the most striking enhanced image in dynamic enhanced image,and maximum intensity projection(MIP) was used to acquire the bilateral breast 3D subtraction angiography images.Besides,the number,diameter,and length of surrounding blood vessels and the contralateral breast vessels were recorded,and the correlation between characteristics of blood supply of the affected mammary gland and its tumor shape,size,ADC values and pathological classification were analyzed. Results Among the 94 cases,the blood supply around the lesions in 79 cases increased more than the contralateral side.The main performances of breast artery anomalies and tumor blood vessels in this study lied in that the tumor blood vessels were more concentrated on the edge of the tumor area;the diameter of blood vessel enlarged,the number of terminal small arteries increased and their go-line was irregular and twisted.The number of abnormal arterial around the breast lesions and tumor blood vessels shown in enhanced MR and MIP reconstruction were correlated with the size and the ADC values of the lesions.The maximum diameter and the ADC values of the tumor were positively correlated with the number of peripheral vascular lesions(r₁=0.567,r₂=0.230,P＜0.05).The tumor shape and the pathological grading of infiltrating ductal carcinoma were not significantly correlated with the number of surrounding blood vessels. Conclusion Breast cancer is a tumor with rich blood supply.The number of abnormal arterial around the breast lesions and tumor blood vessels are correlated with the size and ADC values of the lesions while not significantly correlated with the shape of the lesions and the pathological grading of infiltrating ductal carcinoma.