• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.22-28
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• 2010

To evaluate the potential value of $^1H$ Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for detecting and characterizing invasive ductal carcinoma of breast. We conducted $^1H$ Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), using a 3.0T MR scanner, on 40 patients who were histologically diagnosed to have invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC); tumor areas of the patients were designated as experimental samples, and non-tumor areas as control samples. The peak at 3.2 ppm is characteristically intense and observed in 34 cases of the total 40 invasive ductal carcinoma (sensitivity 86.2%; specificity 100%; positive predictive value 100%; negative predictive value 60%). In constrast peak at 1.3 ppm is characteristically intense and observed in normal breast (sensitivity 86.2%; specificity 100%; positive predictive value 100%; negative predictive value 60%). The study shows that $^1H$ MRS can effectively discriminate invasive ductal carcinoma from normal breast in most cases. It also demonstrates the feasibility of localized in vivo $^1H$ MRS technique as a new diagnostic modality in the detection of breast tumor.