Histological grade of differentiation of hepatocellular carcinoma: comparison of the efficacy of diffusion-weighted MRI with T2-weighted imaging and angiography-assisted CT.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of this study is to determine the usefulness of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for evaluating the histological grade of differentiation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) compared with T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) and tumour haemodynamics.


METHODS
We retrospectively evaluated 32 patients with 42 pathologically confirmed HCC nodules. These patients underwent MRI, CT during arterial portography and CT hepatic arteriography. We evaluated the relationship between the histological grade of differentiation and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values, conspicuity of tumour on DWI, DWI and T2WI contrast-to-noise (C/N) ratios and tumour haemodynamics.


RESULTS
There was no correlation between the histological grade of differentiation and the ADC values. The DWI C/N ratio was significantly different among all histological grades, but the T2WI C/N ratio was not. Tumour conspicuity on DWI correlated well with the histological grade of differentiation, but tumour haemodynamics only partially correlated with the histological grade of differentiation.


CONCLUSIONS
DWI was useful for evaluating the histological grade of differentiation of HCC.
Department of Radiology, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Japan. radiology3110@yahoo.co.jp
Kazuhiro
K
Saito
Fuminori
F
Moriyasu
Katsutoshi
K
Sugimoto
Ryota
R
Nishio
Toru
T
Saguchi
Soichi
S
Akata
Koichi
K
Tokuuye
D000368:Aged; D000792:Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000175:diagnosis*; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*