Whole-Tumor Quantitative Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Histogram and Texture Analysis to Differentiation of Minimal Fat Angiomyolipoma from Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic value of whole-tumor quantitative apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histogram and texture analysis for differentiation of minimal fat angiomyolipoma (MFAML) from clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC).

Materials and methods: We retrospectively reviewed 27 patients with MFAML and 113 patients with ccRCC pathologically proven. All patients performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) including diffusion-weighted imaging (b = 0, 800s/mm²). Whole-tumor regions of interest were drawn on all slices of diffusion-weighted imaging to obtain histogram and texture parameters, including the mean ADC, median ADC, 10th, 25th, 75th, 90th percentiles ADC, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, and entropy. The Student's t test was used to compare the parameters between MFAML and ccRCC. Receiver operating characteristic curves analysis was used to compare the diagnostic value of each significant parameter.

Results: MFAML had significantly lower mean ADC, median ADC, 10th, 25th, 75th, 90th percentiles ADC than ccRCC (p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p < 0.001, respectively). Skewness of MFAML was significantly higher than that of ccRCC (p = 0.016). However, standard deviation, kurtosis, and entropy were not significantly different (p = 0.409, p = 0.085, p = 0.206, respectively). The 90th percentile ADC generated the highest AUC (AUC, 0.854; Sensitivity, 78.8%; Specificity, 81.5%) for differentiating MFAML from ccRCC.

Conclusion: Whole-tumor ADC histogram and texture analysis could be considered a useful and noninvasive method to help differentiate MFAML of ccRCC with higher accuracy.

Keywords: Apparent diffusion coefficient; Clear cell renal cell carcinoma; Diffusion-weighted imaging; Histogram and texture analysis; Minimal fat angiomyolipoma.