Özet:

Objective: Whole body diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) has been increasingly used in oncological cases for detection and characterization of tumors and monitoring of treatment response. We compared the tumor detection capacity and diagnostic accuracy of DWI with positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT), which is regarded as the gold standard. Materials and Methods: The study included 29 adult patients (13 men and 16 women) aged between 38 and 86 years who had various types of cancer, and for whom PET/CT was indicated for staging or evaluating treatment response. A total of 240 lesions that were positive in FDG-PET/CT were identified in the DWI images, and DWI signal intensity and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value were measured for each lesion. SUVmax, ADC, and DWI intensity values of PET-positive lesions and lesion areas for both methods were compared using Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman correlation test. Results: SUVmax and DWI intensities of the lesions showed significant correlation (Spearman correlation coefficient= -0.296, p<0.0001). When we analyzed whether lesion size was associated with SUVmax, ADC, or DWI intensity, we found a correlation between lesion diameter and DWI intensity (r=-0.30 p=0.0001). Conclusion: The DWI was generally correlated with PET/CT with very close specificity and sensitivity values between the two methods. Whole body DWI can be used as an alternative or complementary to PET/CT in investigation and follow-up of oncological cases.

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