Proton relaxation times in cancer diagnosis.

Proton nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation parameters (T1, T2) were measured for over 100 malignant and normal tissue samples of various organs of the human body. The purpose of this study was to estimate the reliability of the NMR technique in discriminating normal from malignant tissues. Breast and cervix samples were analyzed by using the malignancy index concept and we were able to distinguish malignant and normal tissue in 17 out of 18 breast samples and 5 out of 7 cervix samples. Since the relaxation data of a normal control population of the other organs were not available, the data for these are reported without any further analysis. The distinction between carcinomas and sarcomas was also made by using the estimated relaxation parameters. Malignancy indices of breast tissue samples for linear least-squares and nonlinear two-parameter and three-parameter least-squares procedures were calculated and used to evaluate the relative efficiencies in discriminating malignant from normal tissues.