The clinical value of DCE-MRI for differentiating secondary laryngeal cartilage lesions

To explore the value of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) in the assessment of laryngeal cartilage lesions. In this study, 3 groups of cases were selected, including 16 cases benign lesions of the laryngopharynx as the benign group, 17 cases malignant lesions of laryngopharynx as the malignant group and 23 healthy adults as the control group. Conventional magnetic resonance imaging and DCE-MRI were performed with a 3.0 T MR scanner. cutoff, sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve values were calculated via receiver operating characteristic curve analysis based on the pathologic findings of surgically resected specimens. There were significant differences in the values of the volume transfer constant (K-trans), the rate constant between the extravascular extracellular space and blood plasma (K-ep) and The extravascular extracellular space fractional volume (V-e) between the control, benign and malignant groups (P < .005). Among the 3 groups, the malignant group had the highest K-trans and V-e values (0.8681 +/- 0.3034 and 0.6186 +/- 0.2405, respectively), and the benign group had the highest K-ep value (2.445 +/- 0.7346). The cutoff points of the K-trans, K-ep, and V-e values of the control, benign and malignant groups were 0.39, 1.261, and 0.195; 0.471, 0.964, and 0.235; and 0.706, 2.005, and 0.659, respectively. The K-trans, K-ep, and V-e values obtained via DCE-MRI may enable differentiating laryngeal cartilage lesions. DCE-MRI can be used to evaluate laryngeal cartilage lesions accurately and quantitatively.