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• Clinical Article •
The application value of virtual magnetic resonance elastography based on diffusion weighted imaging in focal liver lesions
WANG Jinhan  LI Xiang  LI Chenxia  CUI Ting  JING Yanbo  Chu Chunwei  LIU Shuai  LIU Chenyue  ZHANG Yuelang 

Cite this article as: WANG J H, LI X, LI C X, et al. The application value of virtual magnetic resonance elastography based on diffusion weighted imaging in focal liver lesions[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2023, 14(11): 56-61. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2023.11.010.


[Abstract] Objective To explore the application value of virtual magnetic resonance elastography (vMRE) based on diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) in focal liver lesion (FLL).Materials and Methods A retrospective analysis was made of 224 patients with FLL who underwent upper abdomen MRI in the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University from November 2021 to June 2022. All patients upper abdominal MRI examination sequences including outine fat suppression T2WI (FS-T2WI) and multi b-value DWI. The study subjects were divided into five groups based on pathological or clinical diagnosis: hepatocellular carcinoma, metastatic tumor, cholangiocarcinoma, hemangioma, and liver cyst. Compare the measured values between groups for statistical differences using t-tests or Mann Whitney U-tests, and draw receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of vMRE.Result There was a statistically significant difference in the stiffness value of vMRE in distinguishing benign and malignant lesions (Z=-12.309, P＜0.01), and there was a statistically significant difference in the stiffness value between differentiating hemangiomas and malignant lesions (Z=-6.733, P＜0.01). The sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve (AUC) of virtual elastography were 92.2%, 96.7% and 0.981 respectively in differentiating benign and malignant FLL. The sensitivity of virtual elastography in differentiating hemangioma from malignant lesions was 92.2%, the specificity was 88.0%, and the AUC was 0.926. There were statistical differences between hemangioma and hepatocellular carcinoma (Z=-6.232, P＜0.01), metastatic tumor (Z=-5.975, P＜0.01), and cholangiocarcinoma groups (Z=-4.313, P＜0.01). In malignant lesions, there was no significant statistical difference between the hepatocellular carcinoma group and the metastatic tumor group (K=1.231, P＞0.05), and the hepatocellular carcinoma group and the cholangiocarcinoma group (K=-1.403, P＞0.05); There was a statistical difference between the metastatic tumor group and the cholangiocarcinoma group (K=-2.062, P＜0.05).Conclusions vMRE based on DWI is a non-invasive indicator that reflects the stiffness of tissues. It is helpful for the differential diagnosis of common benign and malignant liver lesions, and may provide a new indicator for the differential diagnosis of atypical hemangiomas and malignant lesions in clinical practice.
[Keywords] focal liver lesions；virtual magnetic resonance elastography；diffusion weighted imaging；magnetic resonance imaging；stiffness

WANG Jinhan   LI Xiang   LI Chenxia   CUI Ting   JING Yanbo   Chu Chunwei   LIU Shuai   LIU Chenyue   ZHANG Yuelang*  

Department of Medical Image, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, China

Corresponding author: ZHANG Y L, E-mail: 18991232590@163.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS General Projects of Shaanxi Province Key Research and Development Plan (No. 2022SF-319); General Clinical Research Project of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University (No. XJTU1AF-CRF-2022-028).
Received  2023-05-01
Accepted  2023-09-21
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2023.11.010
Cite this article as: WANG J H, LI X, LI C X, et al. The application value of virtual magnetic resonance elastography based on diffusion weighted imaging in focal liver lesions[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2023, 14(11): 56-61. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2023.11.010.

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