ABSTRACT
Objective Dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) is a novel functional imaging tech-nique for assessing the property of the tissue vessel .This study was to investigate whether DCE-MRI can manifest the angiogenesis of pri-mary liver cancer in the aspect of vascular permeability so as to provide more objective diagnostic information for the evaluation of primary liver cancer . Methods Twenty-one patients with primary liver cancer underwent DCE-MRI.The region of interest ( ROI) was placed in the whole tumor, the hot spot of the tumor and the adjacent liver parenchyma .Tissue 4D software package was used for the post-pro-cessing of the DCE-MRI images, the quantitative parameters including transfer constant (Ktrans), rate constant (Kep) and tumor extravas-cular extracellular space volume (Ve), and such semi-quantitative parameter as the initial area under the contrast concentration versus time curve (iAUC). Results The mean Ktrans, Kep, Ve and iAUC values were (0.124 ±0.057)/min, (0.632 ±0.158)/min, (0.205 ±0.098) and (10.009 ±6.201) in the adjacent liver parenchyma , (0.196 ±0.109)/min, (0.546 ±0.214)/min, (0.424 ± 0.160) and (13.675 ±6.113) in the whole tumor, and (0.422 ±0.170)/min, (0.780 ±0.308)/min, (0.589 ±0.116) and (35.663 ±19.086) in the hot spot of the tumor .All the parameters were significantly higher in the hot spot of the tumor than in the whole tumor (P<0.05), and so were Ktrans and Ve in the whole tumor than in the adjacent liver parenchyma (P<0.05), but Ktrans, Ve, and iAUC were markedly lower in the adjacent liver parenchyma than in the hot spot of the tumor (P<0.05). Conclusion Analysis of the vascular permeability of the tissue using DCE-MRI parameters can indirectly reflect the angiogenesis of the tumor and contribute to the evaluation of primary liver cancer , while monitoring the DCE-MRI pa-rameters of the hot spots of the tumor may allow more accurate evalua-tion of primary liver cancer .