Purpose: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can reduce the need for unnecessary invasive diagnostic tests by nearly half. In this meta-analysis, we investigated the diagnostic accuracy of intravoxel incoherent motion modeling (IVIM) and dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI in differentiating benign from malignant breast lesions.

Method: We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASE, and Scopus. We included English articles reporting diagnostic accuracy for both sequences in differentiating benign from malignant breast lesions. Articles were assessed by quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies-2 (QUADAS-2) questionnaire. We used a bivariate effects model for standardized mean difference (SMD) analysis and diagnostic test accuracy analysis.

Results: Ten studies with 537 patients and 707 (435 malignant and 272 benign) lesions were included. The D, f, Ktrans, and Kep mean values significantly differ between benign and malignant lesions. The pooled sensitivity (95 % confidence interval) and specificity were 86.2 % (77.9 %-91.7 %) and 70.3 % (56.5 %-81.1 %) for IVIM, and 93.8 % (85.3 %-97.5 %) and 68.1 % (52.7 %-80.4 %) for DCE, respectively. Combined IVIM and DCE depicted the highest area under the curve of 0.94, with a sensitivity and specificity of 91.8 % (82.8 %-96.3 %) and 87.6 % (73.8 %-94.7 %), respectively.

Conclusions: Combined IVIM and DCE had the highest diagnostic accuracy, and multiparametric MRI may help reduce unnecessary benign breast biopsy.