Comparison of various methods for quantification of apparent diffusion coefficient of head and neck lesions with HASTE diffusion-weighted MR imaging.

OBJECTIVES: The purposes of this retrospective study were to compare various methods of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurement for head and neck lesions in half-Fourier single-shot turbo spin-echo (HASTE) diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and determine the threshold ADC value for predicting malignancy.

STUDY DESIGN: HASTE DW images of 46 lesions (10 cysts, 14 benign tumors, and 22 malignant tumors) were studied retrospectively. The ADC values were compared among the 0-1000 method, 500-1000 method, and weighted linear regression (WLR) fit.

RESULTS: The highest overall accuracies of 83.3%, 86.1%, and 88.9% were obtained when ADC values of 1.24 × 10(-3) mm(2)/s (0-1000 method), 0.98 × 10(-3) mm(2)/s (500-1000 method), and 1.23 × 10(-3) mm(2)/s (WLR fit), respectively, were used for the threshold.

CONCLUSIONS: The present results indicate that ADC measurement with HASTE DWI is useful in predicting malignancy of head and neck lesions.