Combination of chemical suppression techniques for dual suppression of fat and silicone at diffusion-weighted MR imaging in women with breast implants.
OBJECTIVE
Silicone breast prostheses prove technically challenging when performing diffusion-weighted MR imaging in the breasts. We describe a combined fat and chemical suppression scheme to achieve dual suppression of fat and silicone, thereby improving the quality of diffusion-weighted images in women with breast implants.


METHODS
MR imaging was performed at 3.0 and 1.5 T in women with silicone breast implants using short-tau inversion recovery (STIR) fat-suppressed echo-planar (EPI) diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) on its own and combined with the slice-select gradient-reversal (SSGR) technique. Imaging was performed using dedicated breast imaging coils.


RESULTS
Complete suppression of the fat and silicone signal was possible at 3.0 T using EPI DWI with STIR and SSGR, evaluated with dedicated breast coils. However, a residual silicone signal was still perceptible at 1.5 T using this combined approach. Nevertheless, a further reduction in silicone signal at 1.5 T could be achieved by employing thinner slice partitions and the addition of the chemical-selective fat-suppression (CHESS) technique.


CONCLUSIONS
DWI using combined STIR and SSGR chemical suppression techniques is feasible to eliminate or reduce silicone signal from prosthetic breast implants.


CONCLUSIONS
Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is frequently needed following breast implants. Unsuppressed signal from silicone creates artefacts on diffusion-weighted MR sequences. Dual fat/chemical suppression can eliminate signal from fat and silicone. STIR with slice selective gradient reversal can suppress fat and silicone signal.
Department of Radiology, Royal Marsden Hospital, Downs Road, SM2 5PT, Sutton, UK. dowmukoh@icr.ac.uk
Dow-Mu
DM
Koh
M
M
Blackledge
S
S
Burns
J
J
Hughes
A
A
Stemmer
B
B
Kiefer
M O
MO
Leach
D J
DJ
Collins
D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D000328:Adult; D016477:Artifacts; D018427:Breast Implants; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D017352:Echo-Planar Imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012828:Silicones / Q000737:chemistry; D012984:Software
D012828:Silicones