Cine MR feature tracking analysis for diagnosing thymic epithelial tumors: a feasibility study

Cancer Imaging

Research Article

Hiroaki Nagano¹  Koji Takumi¹  Takashi Yoshiura¹  Akie Mukai¹  Kazuhiro Ueda²  Kazuhiro Tabata³ 

[1] Department of Radiology, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, 8-35-1 Sakuragaoka, 890-8544, Kagoshima City, Japan;General Thoracic Surgery, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, 8-35-1 Sakuragaoka, 890-8544, Kagoshima City, Japan;Human Pathology, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, 8-35-1 Sakuragaoka, 890-8544, Kagoshima City, Japan;

关键词: Thymic epithelial tumors;    Thymic cancer;    Cine magnetic resonance imaging;    Feature tracking;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40644-023-00560-z

 received in 2023-01-08, accepted in 2023-04-19,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTo assess the feasibility of the cine MR feature tracking technique for the evaluation of cardiovascular-induced morphological deformation in the diagnosis of thymic epithelial tumors (TETs).MethodsOur study population consisted of 43 patients with pathologically proven TETs including 10 low-grade thymomas, 23 high-grade thymomas, and 10 thymic carcinomas. Cine MR images were acquired using a balanced steady-state free precession sequence with short periods of breath-hold in the axial and oblique planes in the slice with the largest lesion cross-sectional area. The tumor margin was manually delineated in the diastolic phase and was automatically tracked for all other cardiac phases. The change rates of the long-to-short diameter ratio (∆LSR) and tumor area (∆area) associated with pulsation were compared between the three pathological groups using the Kruskal–Wallis H test and the Mann–Whitney U test. A receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to assess the ability of each parameter to differentiate thymic carcinomas from thymomas.Results∆LSR and ∆area were significantly different among the three groups in the axial plane (p = 0.028 and 0.006, respectively) and in the oblique plane (p = 0.034 and 0.043, respectively). ∆LSR and ∆area values were significantly lower in thymic carcinomas than in thymomas in the axial plane (for both, p = 0.012) and in the oblique plane (p = 0.015 and 0.011, respectively). The area under the ROC curves for ∆LSR and ∆area for the diagnosis of thymic carcinoma ranged from 0.755 to 0.764.ConclusionsEvaluation of morphological deformation using cine-MR feature tracking analysis can help diagnose histopathological subtypes of TETs and identify thymic carcinomas preoperatively.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

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