Diffusion-weighted imaging using 3.0 T MRI as a possible biomarker of renal tumors

Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) allows for differentiation of benign from malignant tumors, histological tumor types and their grade. The aim of the study was to evaluate the capabilities of DWI using 3 Tesla Magnetic resonance imaging (3T MRI) in the preoperative assessment of renal tumors.

This retrospective study included 143 tumors in 139 patients (130 malignant tumors and 13 benign tumors) that were examined using DWI with b values of 50, 400 and 800 s/mm(2). In all tumors, the lowest value of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) in the solid tissue was measured and correlated with the histological finding.

A significant difference between ADCs of malignant and benign tumors was found (p<0.001). Comparison of the most common malignant and benign tumors clear-cell renal carcinoma (CCRCC) grade I and oncocytoma resulted in a difference of borderline significance with a marked overlap (p=0.046). By assessing the histological types of malignant tumors, we detected a significant difference between CCRCC and all other histological types (p=0.048 for chromophobe (CH) RCC, p=0.002 for papillary (P) RCC and p=0.002 for urothelial carcinoma (UC)). Mutual differentiation of other types of carcinomas was not feasible (p=1.0 in all cases). The differences between low-grade (grade I+II) and high-grade (grade III+IV) CCRCC was significant (p<0.001). A significant difference was found even between CCRCC grade I and others (p=0.01 for grade II, p<0.001 for grade III+IV, respectively).

DWI may contribute in distinguishing CCRCC from other histological types and to determinits grade. The method has certain potential for distinguishing benign from malignant tumors; however, differentiation of the most frequently represented types, CCRCC grade I and oncocytoma, remains difficult.