Differentiation of benign and malignant lesions of the tongue by using diffusion-weighted MRI at 3.0 T.

OBJECTIVES: Diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) has been introduced in head and neck lesions and adds important information to the findings obtained through conventional MRI. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of DWI in differentiating benign and malignant lesions of the tongue at 3.0-T field strength imaging. METHODS: 78 patients with 78 lingual lesions underwent conventional MRI and DWI with b-values of 0 and 1000 s mm(-2) before therapy. The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps were reconstructed, and the ADC values of the lingual lesions were calculated and compared between benign and malignant lesions of the tongue. RESULTS: The mean ADC values of the malignant tumours, benign solid lesions and cystic lesions were (1.08+/-0.16)x10(-3), (1.68+/-0.33)x10(-3) and (2.21+/-0.35)x10(-3) mm2 s(-1), respectively. The mean ADC values of malignant tumours were significantly lower (p<0.001) than those of benign solid lesions, and the mean ADC values of benign solid lesions were significantly lower (p<0.001) than those of cystic lesions. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that when an ADC value<.31x10(-3) mm2 s(-1) was used for predicting malignancy, the highest accuracy of 95.3%, sensitivity of 92.6% and specificity of 97.3% were obtained. CONCLUSIONS: ADC values of benign and malignant lesions are significantly different at 3.0-T imaging. DWI can be applied as a complementary tool in the differentiation of benign and malignant lesions of the tongue.