[Value of R2(*) in evaluating the biological behavior of primary hepatocellular carcinoma].
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the correlation between R2(*) value of enhanced T2 star-weighted angiography (ESWAN) sequence and primary hepatocellular carcinoma infiltration and tumor thrombus, and investigate the biological behavior of HCC.


METHODS
A total of 221 cases of patients' imaging data with MRI examination(including ESWAN sequence) diagnosed as primary HCC were retrospectively analyzed.All the patients were collected from January 2014 to September 2015 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University.The differences of R2(*) values in different MR types of HCC were analyzed.All patients were divided into infiltration group and non-infiltration group, tumor thrombus group and non-tumor thrombus group, the R2(*) values of the paired groups were compared.The diagnostic efficiency of R2(*) in HCC infiltration and tumor thrombus were evaluated by ROC curve, and to find out the threshold values.


RESULTS
The MR types of 221 patients included 90 cases of nodular type, 62 cases of massive type, 69 cases of diffuse type.70 patients had tumor thrombus.The R2(*) values of different MR types were (21.82±8.52), (24.17±8.84)and (34.45±11.73) Hz, respectively.There was no statistically significant difference between the nodular and the massive types (P=0.144), while the difference between the nodular and diffuse type, the massive and diffuse types were statistically significant(P=0.000). The R2(*) values of infiltration group and non-infiltration group were (34.45±11.73) and (22.78±8.70) Hz , the R2(*) values of tumor thrombus group and non-tumor thrombus group were (31.20±12.17) and (24.21±9.90) Hz, the difference also had statistically significant(t=7.397 and 4.534, P=0.000 and 0.000). The AUC of R2(*) values for infiltration and tumor thrombus were 0.804, 0.681. R2(*) ≥24.68 Hz was the threshold value to diagnose the infiltration and tumor thrombus.


CONCLUSIONS
R2(*) value can be used as a MR non-enhancement quantitative index to evaluate the biological behavior of HCC.
Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, China.
S F
SF
Tian
A L
AL
Liu
J H
JH
Liu
Y
Y
Li
X D
XD
Liu
K
K
Huang
Q W
QW
Song
M Z
MZ
Xu
W Y
WY
Guo
D000792:Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D012372:ROC Curve; D012189:Retrospective Studies