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• Clinical Article •
Evaluation of the value of diffusion tensor imaging in assessing the early efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound in adenomyosis
MO Fan  GONG Chunmei  PENG Gang  LI Hongxia  REN Zhen  LÜ Fajin 

Cite this article as: MO F, GONG C M, PENG G, et al. Evaluation of the value of diffusion tensor imaging in assessing the early efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound in adenomyosis[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2025, 16(10): 76-82. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2025.10.012.


[Abstract] Objective To investigate the correlation between preoperative diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters and the early ablation efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) in the treatment of adenomyosis, and to evaluate the predictive value of DTI-derived quantitative parameters.Materials and Methods A retrospective study was conducted on 40 patients with adenomyosis, involving a total of 42 lesions. All participants underwent contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI) and DTI scans both preoperatively and within one day after HIFU treatment. The following preoperative DTI parameters were measured: fractional anisotropy (FA), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), exponential map (EXP), mean fiber tract length, and mean fiber density. Correlation analyses were performed between these parameters and the non-perfused volume ratio (NPVR) as a measure of ablation efficacy.Results Mean fiber tract length (r = 0.524, P = 0.002) and fiber density (r = 0.603, P = 0.001) were significantly positively correlated with NPVR. In contrast, FA, ADC, and EXP showed no significant correlation. When using NPVR > 50% as the threshold for satisfactory ablation, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.785 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.622 to 0.949, P = 0.006] for mean fiber density and 0.711 (95% CI: 0.525 to 0.897, P = 0.042) for mean fiber tract length.Conclusions DTI parameters are associated with variations in HIFU treatment efficacy for adenomyosis. Specifically, greater mean fiber tract length and fiber density are positively correlated with better ablation outcomes. These preoperative DTI-based quantitative parameters may serve as useful predictors of therapeutic efficacy in HIFU treatment for adenomyosis.
[Keywords] fiber tractography；diffusion tensor imaging；adenomyosis；high-intensity focused ultrasound；magnetic resonance imaging

MO Fan1   GONG Chunmei1   PENG Gang2   LI Hongxia1   REN Zhen1   LÜ Fajin1, 2*  

1 State Key Laboratory of Ultrasound in Medicine and Engineering, College of Biomedical Engineering, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China

2 Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China

Corresponding author: LÜ F J, E-mail: fajinlv@163.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2025-06-26
Accepted  2025-10-10
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2025.10.012
Cite this article as: MO F, GONG C M, PENG G, et al. Evaluation of the value of diffusion tensor imaging in assessing the early efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound in adenomyosis[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2025, 16(10): 76-82. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2025.10.012.

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