title: [Virtual unehanced image in the single-source dual energy CT for evaluation of renal cell carcinoma:a preliminary study].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate the feasibility of CT virtual unenhanced (VUE) spectral imaging in renal cell carcinoma.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-six patients with histopathologically proven renal cell carcinoma underwent gemstone spectral imaging (GSI) including ture unenhanced (TUE), arterial, cortex and medullary phase acquisitions. The triphasic GSI dataset was sent to workstation and 3 sets of VUE images (including VUE a, VUE c, VUE m) were obtained by subtract iodine from iodine-water images in the triphasic enhanced GSI images, respectively. The quality of VUE s and TUE images was evaluated on a five-point scale.Interobserver agreement with regard to image quality was assessed using Cohen's Kappa, and four groups of image quality was compared with ANOVA analysis. The contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of mass-to-kidney in the TUE and VUE s images was calculated, and difference between these four datasets was compared with ANOVA analysis. Using appearance of masses on triphasic images as a standard, the masses detection ratio of four groups was calculated and compared with chi-square test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Interobserver agreement with regard to image quality was excellent (κ>0.600). There was no significant difference among the image quality of TUE and triphasic images of VUEs (P>0.05). The CNR of TUE (0.7 ± 0.6) was significant worse than that of triphasic images (1.7 ± 1.0, 1.9 ± 1.2, 2.5 ± 1.4, respectively) (P<0.05). There was no significant difference among the CNR of triphasic images (P>0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  VUE images obtain from triphasic phases may be a surrogate for conventional unenhanced scan in renal cell carcinoma diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Jinghong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China; Email: cjr.liuailian@vip.163.com.
authors.forename: Ailian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Shifeng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Anliang
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Yimin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Meiyu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D002292:Carcinoma, Renal Cell; D006801:Humans; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed