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To evaluate the value of texture analysis based on dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) in the differential diagnosis of thymic carcinoma and thymic lymphoma. Sixty-nine patients with pathologically confirmed (thymic carcinoma, n = 32; thymic lymphoma, n = 37) were enrolled in this retrospective study. Ktrans, Kep and Ve maps were automatically generated, and texture features were extracted, including mean, median, 5th/95th percentile, skewness, kurtosis, diff-variance, diff-entropy, contrast and entropy. The differences in parameters between the two groups were compared and the diagnostic efficacy was calculated. The Ktrans-related significant features yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.769 (sensitivity 90.6%, specificity 51.4%) for the differentiation between thymic carcinoma and thymic lymphoma. The Kep-related significant features yielded an AUC of 0.780 (sensitivity 87.5%, specificity 62.2%). The Ve-related significant features yielded an AUC of 0.807 (sensitivity 75.0%, specificity 78.4%). The combination of DCE-MRI textural features yielded an AUC of 0.962 (sensitivity 93.8%, specificity 89.2%). Five parameters were screened out, including age, Ktrans-entropy, Kep-entropy, Ve-entropy, and Ve-P95. The combination of these five parameters yielded the best discrimination efficiency (AUC of 0.943, 93.7% sensitivity, 81.1% specificity). Texture analysis of DCE-MRI may be helpful to distinguish thymic carcinoma from thymic lymphoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To compare intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) and pharmacokinetic analysis dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging (DCE-MRI) in distinguishing lung cancer (LC) from benign solitary pulmonary lesions (SPL). Methods: This prospective study was approved by the institutional review board, and written informed consent was obtained. Eighty-one consecutive patients considered for SPL underwent DW-IVIM and DCE-3T MRI. ADC, D, D*, and f were calculated with mono- and bi-exponential models. K(trans) , kep , ve , and vp were calculated with the modified Tofts model. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was constructed to determine the diagnostic performance of IVIM and DCE-MRI in discriminating LC from benignity. Results: There were 29 patients with a total of 48 benign SPL and 52 LCs: 4 small cell carcinomas (SCLC), 19 squamous cell carcinomas (SCC), and 29 adenocarcinomas (Adeno-Ca). Both Adeno-Ca (ADC: 1.19 ± 0.23 × 10(-3) mm(2) /s; D:1.12 ± 0.35 × 10(-3) mm(2) /s; ve :0.27 ± 0.13; K(trans) :0.24 ± 0.09 min(-1) ; kep :0.90 ± 0.45 min(-1) ) and SCC (1.13± 0.28 × 10(-3) mm(2) /s; 1.02 ± 0.32 10(-3) mm(2) /s; 0.32 ± 0.14; 0.26 ± 0.08 min(-1) ; 0.90 ± 0.48 min(-1) ) had significantly lower ADC, D, ve and larger K(trans) , kep than benignity (1.37 ± 0.38 × 10(-3) mm(2) /s; 1.34 ± 0.45 × 10(-3) mm(2) /s; 0.42 ± 0.19; 0.19 ± 0.08 min(-1) ; 0.53 ± 0.26 min(-1) ). D (72.2%) had significantly higher accuracy (72.2%) and higher sensitivity (91.3%) than other imaging indices (accuracy: 55.5-68.0%; sensitivity: 41.3-78.3%; all P < 0.01) except for accuracy in kep (70.8%; P > 0.05) in discriminating LC from benignity. K(trans) exhibited significantly higher specificity (84.6%) than the other indices (38.5-73.1%; P < 0.01). These results can be improved by combined D and K(trans) , leading to a sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 94.2%, 92%, and 93.5%, respectively. Conclusion: IVIM-derived D and DCE-derived K(trans) are two promising parameters for differentiating LC from benignity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]