Related Experiment Video For Diagnostic criterion
Updated: Dec 7, 2025

Investigations on the GaIII Complex of EOB-DTPA and Its 68Ga Radiolabeled Analogue
Published on: August 17, 2016
A New Diagnostic Criterion with Gadoxetic Acid-Enhanced MRI May Improve the Diagnostic Performance for Hepatocellular
Yi Wei1, Zheng Ye1, Yuan Yuan1
1Department of Radiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Background:
To prospectively establish and validate new diagnostic criterion (DC) for liver-specific contrast agents and further compared the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity with conventional DC.
Methods:
Institutional Review Board approved and written informed consent were obtained for this prospective study. Two board-certified reviewers established the reference standard as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), non-HCC lesions by using marks on all cross-sectional MR images. Another 2 abdominal radiologists independently performed the marked lesion observations using 5 different DCs, including DC-1: arterial phase hyperenhancement (APHE) and portal venous phase washout; DC-2: APHE and hepatobiliary phase (HBP) hypointensity; DC-3: APHE and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) hyperintensity; DC-4: HBP hypointensity and DWI hyperintensity; DC-5: HBP hypointensity, DWI hyperintensity and excluded these markedly T2 hyperintensity. Diagnostic performance of sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for each imaging DC was calculated, per-lesion diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of imaging criteria were compared by using McNemars test.
Results:
A total of 215 patients were included (mean age 53.82 ± 11.24 years; range 24-82 years) with 265 hepatic nodules (175 HCCs and 90 non-HCCs). The DC-4 (93.71%; 164/175) and DC-5 (92.57%; 162/175) yielded the highest diagnostic sensitivity and was better than DC-1 (72.57%; 127/175), DC-2 (82.86%; 145/175), and DC-3 (82.29%; 144/175) (all p < 0.001). The specificity of DC-1 (94.44%; 85/90) was significantly higher than that with DC-2 (83.33%; 75/90), DC-3 (84.44%; 76/90), DC-4 (74.44%; 67/90), and DC-5 (82.22%; 74/90) (all p < 0.05). Additionally, the DC-4 and DC-5 achieved the highest area under curve value of 0.841 (95% CI 0.783-0.899) and 0.874 (95% CI 0.822-0.925).
Conclusions:
The combined use of HBP hypointensity and DWI hyperintensity as a new DC for HCC enables a high diagnostic sensitivity and comparable specificity.
Related Concept Videos
Ultrasound II: Endoscopic Ultrasound and FibroScan
Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS):
Magnetic Resonance Imaging

