Diagnostic Performance of Fused Diffusion-Weighted Imaging Using T1-Weighted Imaging for Axillary Nodal Staging in Patients With Early Breast Cancer

We evaluate the diagnostic performance of fused diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for axillary nodal staging in patients with early breast cancer. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of both readers for axillary nodal staging were 0.676 and 0.603 for non-fat-suppressed (non-FS) T1WI, 0.749 and 0.727 for T2WI, and 0.838 and 0.790 for fused DWI. Fused DWI showed better diagnostic performance than conventional T2WI and non-FS T1WI.154