Morphologic Evaluation of Primary Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer by 3 Tesla MRI with Free-Breathing Ultrashort Echo Time and Radial T1-Weighted Gradient Echo Sequences: A Comparison with CT Analysis

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE@#To evaluate morphologic features of primary non-small cell lung cancer using 3 Tesla MRI with free-breathing compared with CT.@*MATERIALS AND METHODS@#Thirty-six patients were enrolled. A 64-channel multidetector CT and 3 Tesla MRI with ultrashort echo time pointwise encoding time reduction with radial acquisition (PETRA) and radial volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (VIBE) were compared in size, shape, margin, internal characteristics, and tumor interface of primary tumor.@*RESULTS@#There were no significant differences in tumor size between CT and either PETRA or radial VIBE (p = 0.054 and p = 0.764, respectively). Kappa (κ) statistics of shape, margin, and internal characteristics were respectively κ = 0.86, 0.65, 0.77 on PETRA and κ = 0.93, 0.84, 0.83 on radial VIBE compared with CT. PETRA and radial VIBE revealed clearer interface compared with CT (p = 0.000 and p < 0.000, respectively). Radial VIBE showed higher frequency of clear interface (94.4%) than PETRA (88.9%). MRI did not show significantly clear interface which was located in lung base (p = 0.363 on PETRA and p = 0.175 on radial VIBE) compared with CT.@*CONCLUSION@#MRI with PETRA and radial VIBE sequences can be a feasible method to evaluate morphologic features of primary non-small cell lung cancer compared with CT.