Diagnostic Value Of Susceptibility Weighted Imaging On Magnetic Resonance Imaging For Distinguishing Malignant From Benign Parotid Lesions

Objective The purpose of our study was to explore the diagnostic performance of susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) in distinguishing malignant from benign parotid lesions.Methods We retrospectively evaluated preoperative SWI findings of 41 patients with malignant and benign parotid lesions by surgical pathology, and explore the intravenous distribution, the largest diameter of veins (dv.max), the number of veins per unit area (N/Svein) and the graduation of intratumoral susceptibility signal intensity (ITSS). The intravenous distribution was analyzed by Chi-square test using relating data in SPSS, the dv-max and N/Svein were tested by Independent T-test, and the graduation of ITSS was evaluated by Mann-Whitney U rank test. The parameters contributed to the significant differences between benign and malignant lesions in dv-max, N/Svein and the graduation of ITSS were evaluated by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves analysis with SPSS 16.0 software.Result The intravenous distribution (p=0.000), the largest diameter of veins (p=0.000), and the graduation of intensity in intratumoral susceptibility signal (p=0.000) of parotid lesions were significantly different between malignant and benign lesions, while N/Svein (p=0.367) was statistically insignificant. When the Youden index reached the highest point, the optimal diagnostic threshold of dv-max and ITSS values were 1.75mm and 1.5, the corresponding area under the ROC curve (AUC) were 0.924 and 0.856 respectively. The sensitivity of intravenous distribution, dv-max and ITSS on diagnosis were 83.3%,83.3% and 83.3%, and the specificity of that were 89.7%, 96.6% and 86.2% respectively.Conclusion The results provided evidence that SWI may be helpful in distinguishing malignant from benign parotid lesions, and it is worth to be generalized in clinical medicine.