Our proposal aimed at creating a new method capable of improving the detection and diagnosis of breast cancers, based on Spatiotemporal-Encoding (SPEN) principles. SPEN is a new approach that as a byproduct of our AdG ERC activities on nuclear magnetic resonance, we developed for the single-shot acquisition of nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. We found that SPEN MRI could provide much cleaner, artefact-free alternatives than existing single-shot MRI standards of the kind used to monitor diffusivity in tissues. As diffusivity is known to correlate with breast cancer malignancies SPEN-based diffusion measurements could thus provide a rapid, safe and accurate diagnosis of breast malignancies, reducing unnecessary biopsies while avoiding side-effects associated from contrast agent injections. Based on such hypothesis, this Project focused on translating SPEN-based diffusion methods for breast cancer diagnosis, into clinical use. To this end numerous improvements were done on diffusion-based SPEN MRI, including both on the data acquisition and processing protocols. All these improvements were carried out on a clinical scanner, and led to acquisition and processing software packages compatible with thousands of MRI scanners nowadays in use. Concurrently, systematic analyses on breast cancer patients were initiated in collaboration with local hospitals. These included demonstrations whereby malignancies could be characterized with a 1mm spatial resolution at 3T – to our knowledge a hitherto unachieved success. Based on this experience we conclude that we have reached a more efficient and reliable tool for diagnosing this kind of malignancy.
