Effectiveness of 3 T PROPELLER DUO diffusion-weighted MRI in differentiating sinonasal lymphomas and carcinomas.

Aim To evaluate the value of 3 T Periodically rotated overlapping parallel lines with enhanced reconstruction (PROPELLER) DUO diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI) in differentiating sinonasal lymphomas from carcinomas. Materials and methods PROPELLER DUO DW-MRI was performed in 23 patients with sinonasal lymphomas and 28 patients with carcinomas histologically confirmed at 3 T MRI. Apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) were obtained with two different b-values (b = 0 and 700 s/mm 2 , b = 0 and 1000 s/mm 2 ) and two different regions of interest (ROIs) sampling strategies [whole section (WS), partial section (PS)], respectively. Difference in ADCs between sinonasal lymphomas and carcinomas was evaluated using the independent samples t -test or Mann–Whitney U -test. The utility of ADC thresholds for discriminating between them was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic analysis. Results ADCs of sinonasal lymphomas (WS ADC b0,700 , 0.838 × 10 −3 mm 2 /s) were significantly ( p < 0.001) lower than those of carcinomas (WS ADC b0,700 , 1.396 × 10 −3 mm 2 /s). Using a WS ADC b0,700 value of 1.040 × 10 −3 mm 2 /s as the threshold value effectively differentiated sinonasal lymphomas from carcinomas with 100% sensitivity, 82.1% specificity, and 82.1% positive and 100% negative predictive values and 90.2% accuracy (b = 0, 700 s/mm 2 ). There was no significant difference in diagnostic ability between different b-values settings ( p > 0.05) and different sampling strategies of ROIs ( p > 0.05), respectively. Additionally, there was significant differences in the ADCs between diffuse large B-cell lymphomas and natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphomas ( p < 0.05). Conclusion PROPELLER DUO DW-MRI can effectively differentiate sinonasal lymphomas from carcinomas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]