Objective To investigate the value of amide proton transfer(APT)imaging in evaluating lymph-vascular space inva-sion(LVSI)of cervical cancer.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on the data of cervical cancer patients with patho-logically confirmed LVSI status.Based on the presence of LVSI,the patients were divided into LVSI positive group and LVSI nega-tive group.All patients underwent diffusion weighted imaging(DWI)and APT imaging before treatment,and the apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC)and APT values of the lesions were measured.An independent sample t-test was used to compare the differences in ADC and APT values between the two groups.The sensitivity,specificity and area under the curve(AUC)of ADC,APT and ADC+APT in predicting LVSI were observed by receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve,and the diagnostic performance of the three was compared by DeLong test.Results A total of 78 patients were included,of which 54 were LVSI negative and 24 were LVSI positive.The ADC values in the LVSI positive group were significantly lower than those in the LVSI negative group(P＜0.001),while the APT values in the LVSI positive group were significantly higher than those in the LVSI negative group(P＜0.001).The sensitivities of ADC,APT and ADC+APT in predicting LVSI were 79.17％,83.33％ and 87.50％,respectively,the specificities were 75.93％,55.56％ and 77.78％,respectively,and the AUC were 0.828,0.759 and 0.868,respectively,indicating that the diag-nostic performance of ADC+APT was better than that of ADC and APT alone(P＜0.001).Conclusion APT imaging can preop-eratively predict the presence of LVSI status in cervical cancer.When combined with ADC,its diagnostic accuracy is higher than that of APT alone,providing a new approach for evaluating LVSI in cervical cancer.

Objective To investigate the value of amide proton transfer(APT)imaging in evaluating lymph-vascular space inva-sion(LVSI)of cervical cancer.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on the data of cervical cancer patients with patho-logically confirmed LVSI status.Based on the presence of LVSI,the patients were divided into LVSI positive group and LVSI nega-tive group.All patients underwent diffusion weighted imaging(DWI)and APT imaging before treatment,and the apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC)and APT values of the lesions were measured.An independent sample t-test was used to compare the differences in ADC and APT values between the two groups.The sensitivity,specificity and area under the curve(AUC)of ADC,APT and ADC+APT in predicting LVSI were observed by receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve,and the diagnostic performance of the three was compared by DeLong test.Results A total of 78 patients were included,of which 54 were LVSI negative and 24 were LVSI positive.The ADC values in the LVSI positive group were significantly lower than those in the LVSI negative group(P＜0.001),while the APT values in the LVSI positive group were significantly higher than those in the LVSI negative group(P＜0.001).The sensitivities of ADC,APT and ADC+APT in predicting LVSI were 79.17％,83.33％ and 87.50％,respectively,the specificities were 75.93％,55.56％ and 77.78％,respectively,and the AUC were 0.828,0.759 and 0.868,respectively,indicating that the diag-nostic performance of ADC+APT was better than that of ADC and APT alone(P＜0.001).Conclusion APT imaging can preop-eratively predict the presence of LVSI status in cervical cancer.When combined with ADC,its diagnostic accuracy is higher than that of APT alone,providing a new approach for evaluating LVSI in cervical cancer.