Usefulness of diffusion weighted MRI in differentiating benign from malignant bone lesions

Abstract

one tumors represent a wide spectrum of disease in children & adult ranging from benign lesions to an aggressive malignancy, so finding a noninvasive diagnostic tool was needed. We aimed to differentiate between benign and malignant bone lesions and to limits the number of patient with benign lesion who undergo biopsy. Our study was carried out on 32 patients were diagnosed with bone tumors (21 benign & 11 malignant). They were assessed with conventional & diffusion MR images, DW EPI carried out using different b values including 0 s/ mm², 500 s/ mm², and 800 s/ mm². ADC map were automatically calculated. The mean ADC value for benign tumors was 1.6±0.4 x 10 -3 mm2/s. while malignant tumors were 1.2±0.3 x 10 -3 mm2/s. ROC analysis was used to define the best cut off mean ADC value for detecting malignancy which was <1.3, with sensitivity of 90.9% specificity of 85.7%.