Diagnostic Performance of Simulated Abbreviated MRI for Early-Stage Hepatocellular Carcinoma Screening: A Comparison to Conventional Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI
- Author:
Eun Sol LIM
1
;
Sung Mo KIM
;
Sang Soo SHIN
;
Suk Hee HEO
;
Jong Eun LEE
;
Yong Yeon JEONG
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- From:Journal of the Korean Radiological Society 2021;82(5):1218-1230
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Purpose:To compare the per-patient diagnostic performance of simulated abbreviated MRI (AMRI) to that of conventional MRI (CMRI) with full-sequence dynamic gadoxetic acid (GA) enhancement for early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) screening in high-risk patients.
Materials and Methods:A total of 201 consecutive patients at high-risk for HCC, who underwent 3T liver MRI, were included in this retrospective study. The AMRI protocol comprised T2-weighted imaging, hepatobiliary phase imaging after GA injection, and diffusion-weighted imaging. For each patient, two AMRI and CMRI image sets were independently reviewed by two radiologists.Inter-reader agreement was assessed using Cohen’s kappa value. A composite reference standard was used to determine the diagnostic performance of each image set for each reader.
Results:A total of 93 HCCs were detected in 79 patients. The inter-reader agreement was almost perfect for both image sets (κ = 0.839, 0.948). In AMRI, the per-patient sensitivity and negative predictive values (NPV) were 94.9% and 96.4%, respectively. In CMRI, the per-patient sensitivity and NPV were 96.2% and 97.5%, respectively.
Conclusion:AMRI, using only three sequences, had a comparable diagnostic performance to CMRI in screening early-stage HCC. AMRI could be an alternative HCC screening tool for highrisk HCC patients.
