Value of dual source CT iodine concentration in the evaluation of pathological grades of esophageal carcinoma / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the value of dual source CT iodine concentration in the assessment of pathological grade of esophageal carcinoma. Methods Retrospective review was performed on 60 cases with pathologically?confirmed esophageal carcinoma. Among them, 17 tumors were well differentiated, 24 were moderately differentiated and 19 were poorly differentiated. The dual?energy plain scan and double phase enhanced scan of dual?source CT were performed on all 60 cases. Normalized iodine concentration (NIC) and the enhancement degree of the esophageal carcinoma in the arterial and venous phase were measured. The difference of NIC and enhancement degree among different grades of esophageal carcinoma were analyzed by analysis of variance. To evaluate the efficiency of NIC and enhancement degree in differentiating the well?moderately differentiated esophageal carcinoma from poorly differentiated esophageal carcinoma, ROC curve was plotted. Results The NIC values of the well differentiated, the moderately differentiated and the poorly differentiated esophageal carcinoma in the arterial phase were (1.54±0.34),(1.72±0.50)and(2.10±0.40)mg/ml, respectively;the NIC values in venous phase were(1.55± 0.52),(1.80±0.62)and(2.18±0.35)mg/ml,respectively, and the degrees of CT enhancement in venous phase were(25.65 ± 4.43),(27.55 ± 6.82)and(30.77 ± 6.38)HU, respectively. The differences between groups were statistically significant(P<0.05). The degrees of CT enhancement of well differentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated esophageal carcinoma in arterial phase were(14.40 ± 3.91),(14.26 ± 7.35)and(16.17 ± 6.89)HU, respectively, and there were no statistically significant differences(P=0.582). Areas under the ROC curves to differentiate well?moderately differentiated from poorly differentiated esophageal carcinoma for NIC in arterial phase, NIC in venous phase and the degree of CT enhancement in venous phase were 0.801, 0.817 and 0.730. Conclusion The iodine concentration measured on dual source CT has a certain value in evaluating the pathological grades of esophageal carcinoma.