Preliminary application of multiple parameters spectral CT in the diagnosis of ovarian cancer

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of spectral CT in the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. We retrospectively analyzed the data of 22 patients with spectral CT enhanced scan. The patients were divided into 2 groups: ovarian cancer group (n = 11) and benign tumor group (n = 11), according to the pathologic results. CT values at 40 keV, iodine concentration (IC), water concentration (WC) and spectral curve slope (λHU) of arterial phase and venous phase in the tumors of 2 groups were measured with gemstone spectral imaging (GSI) post-processing software. The independent samples t test was used to compare these multiple parameters above between 2 groups. For the parameters which showed statistically different, the ROC curves were further generated to calculate their diagnostic effectiveness respectively. According to the results, CT values at 40 keV, IC and λHU measured in arterial and venous phases were higher in ovarian cancer group than those in benign tumor group. There were significant differences between these 2 groups (P < 0.05). While WC had no significant difference in these 2 groups (P > 0.05). CT values at 40 keV, IC and λHU had high effectiveness to the diagnosis of ovarian cancer according to ROC curves. The optimal parameter among them was IC in arterial phase with AUC of 0.90. Using 10.92 (100 ug/cm3) as a threshold value, the sensitivity and specificity for diagnosis were 88.9% and 94.7%. Thus, we concluded that spectral CT with multiple parameters was valuable in the diagnosis of ovarian cancer.