Diffusion Tensor based Reconstruction of the Ductal Tree

INTRODUCTION: The architecture of the ductal trees was first investigated by Sir Astley Cooper in 1840, using duct injection studies ex-vivo (1). Recently, computer derived tracking of whole-breast ductal trees has been achieved in few human breasts using mastectomy specimens (2). Studying the architecture of the entire ductal trees is very challenging and has not been achieved in vivo, yet (3, 4). The functional breast tissue is composed of many lobes, which are highly variable in size and shape. Each lobe/system has one central duct with its peripheral branches forming a ductal tree and their associated glandular tissues. A new non-invasive MRI method for in vivo tracking of the mammary ductal trees using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was previously proposed using vector maps (5,6). Here we describe a novel methodology towards in-vivo determination of the entire ductal tree system.