BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:
T1 imaging is a new quantitative MR imaging pulse sequence with the potential to discriminate between malignant and benign tissue. In this study, we evaluated the capability of T1 imaging to characterize tissue by applying T1 imaging to malignant and benign tissue in the nasopharynx and to normal tissue in the head and neck.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
Participants with undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma and benign hyperplasia of the nasopharynx prospectively underwent T1 imaging. T1 measurements obtained from the histogram analysis for nasopharyngeal carcinoma in 43 participants were compared with those for benign hyperplasia and for normal tissue (brain, muscle, and parotid glands) in 41 participants using the Mann-Whitney U test. The area under the curve of significant T1 measurements was calculated and compared using receiver operating characteristic analysis and the Delong test, respectively. A P < . 05 indicated sta tistical significance.
RESULTS:
There were significant differences in T1 measurements between nasopharyngeal carcinoma and benign hyperplasia and between nasopharyngeal carcinoma and normal tissue (all, P < . 05). Compared with benign hyperplasia, nasopharyngeal carcinoma showed a lower T1 mean (62.14 versus 65.45 x ms), SD (12.60 versus 17.73 x ms), and skewness (0.61 versus 0.76) (all P < .05), but no difference in kurtosis (P = . 18). The T1 SD showed the highest area under the curve of 0.95 compared with the T1 mean (area under the curve = 0.72) and T1 skewness (area under the curve = 0.72) for discriminating nasopharyngeal carcinoma and benign hyperplasia (all, P < .05).
CONCLUSIONS:
Quantitative T1 imaging has the potential to discriminate malignant from benign and normal tissue in the head and neck.
No comments:
Post a Comment