What does marked background parenchymal enhancement mean?

Background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) is defined as the initial enhancement of the normal breast tissue in the standardized dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). BPE is categorized as minimal, mild, moderate, and marked according to the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) [1.

Does parenchymal enhancement mean cancer?

In conclusion, the meta-analysis by Thompson et al provides evidence that in a subset of women with high risk, higher background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) levels are associated with greater odds of the presence of breast cancer.

What does it mean if breast MRI showed enhancement?

‘Enhancement’ refers to a process by which lesions revealed on a breast MRI image increases in contrast at a specific rate over a given short-time interval, which indicates increased vascularity to the area.

What is parenchymal in the breast?

Mammographic breast parenchymal pattern or percent density is mainly a reflection of the proportion of glandular tissue to fatty tissue, and studies have shown that it works synergistically with other risk factors such as nulliparity in predicting breast cancer risk.

What causes parenchymal enhancement?

Main points. Background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) on breast MRI is linked to estrogen levels and varies among women. BPE is a dynamic process and can change over time, diminishing by women age. Postmenopausal women, even without any lesions on the breast, should be followed up closely if they have high-grade BPE.

What is heterogeneous parenchymal enhancement?

Heterogeneous enhancement patterns of tumor-adjacent parenchyma at MR imaging are associated with the tumor necrosis signaling pathway and poor survival in breast cancer.

Are enhancing lesions cancerous?

Most enhancing lesions identified within the breast will not be malignant, so methods to differen- tiate these false-positive enhancing le- sions from the true-positive malignancies are needed. The time–signal intensity curve analysis presented by Kuhl et al provides one such method.

How often is breast MRI false positive?

Several screening MRI studies have reported a false-positive rate (FPR) ranging from 52 per 1000 cases to 97 per 1000 cases; thus, FPR reduction is an important issue when considering use of breast MRI as a screening tool (3).