Diagnostic performance of whole-lesion apparent diffusion coefficient histogram analysis metrics for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions: a systematic review and diagnostic meta-analysis.

Background: Although whole-lesion apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histogram has been increasingly used for breast lesions, it has not been routinely used in clinical practice as an emergent promising imaging tool.

Purpose: To evaluate the performance of whole-lesion ADC histogram analysis metrics for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions.

Material And Methods: A systematic PubMed/EMBASE/Cochrane electronic database search was performed for original diagnostic studies from 1 January 1970 to 2 January 2019. Summary estimates of diagnostic accuracy were generated and meta-regression was performed to explore sources of heterogeneity according to study and magnetic resonance imaging characteristics.

Results: Five original articles involving 493 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of whole-lesion ADC histogram analysis were 0.85 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.81-0.89) and 0.79 (95% CI = 0.72-0.84) for distinguishing benign and malignant breast lesions, respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.9178. No publication bias was detected ( = 0.51). In subgroup analysis, the summary sensitivity and specificity of 50th percentile ADC value were 0.81 (95% CI = 0.71-0.88) and 0.86 (95% CI = 0.74-0.94), respectively. Meta-regression analysis indicated no covariates were sources of heterogeneity ( > 0.05).

Conclusion: Whole-lesion ADC histogram analysis demonstrated good diagnostic performance for differentiating between benign and malignant breast lesions, with 50th percentile ADC value showing higher diagnostic accuracy than other histogram parameters. Given the limited number of studies included in the analysis, the findings from our meta-analysis will need further confirmation in future research.