Preliminary Study Of 3.0T MR Arterial Spin Labeling In The Diagnosis Of Parotid Gland Tumors

Objective: To investigate the value of arterial spin labeling(ASL)MRI in differential diagnosis of parotid tumors.Materials: In this prospective study,patients suspected of parotid tumors from March 2017 to January 2020 in our hospital were collected.All parotid gland tumors underwent T1-weighted,T2-weighted,and ASL imaging.Normalized tumor blood flow(n TBF)was calculated on ASL images(n TBF=TBFtumor/TBFcontralateral parotid gland),and the n TBFs were correlated with their pathologies.Results: a total of 45 patients with parotid tumors confirmed by postoperative pathology were included in this study,including 28 cases of benign tumors,including 14 cases of adenolymphoma,14 cases of pleomorphic adenoma and17 cases of malignant tumors.The n TBF in Warthin tumors,pleomorphic adenomas and malignant parotid gland tumors were 3.71±1.65,0.89±0.25 and1.55±0.60,respectively.The n TBF of Warthin tumors was significantly higher than pleomorphic adenomas and malignant parotid gland tumors(P<0.01),but there was no significant difference in NTBF between pleomorphic adenoma and malignant tumor(P = 0.073).AUC(area under the ROC curve)of n TBF for differentiating Warthin’s tumours from the other pathologies was 0.935.The sensitivity and specificity of n TBF for the diagnosis of Warthin’s tumours at an optimal n TBF threshold of over 2.03 were 92.9%,93.5%,respectively.Conclusion: ASL with n TBF could noninvasively evaluate tumour blood flow of parotid gland tumours and differentiate Warthin’s tumours from pleomorphic adenomas and malignant tumours.