The Diagnosing Value of Diffusion-weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Cranial Bone in Pituitary Adenomas Patients with Different Prolactin Level / 中国医科大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the changes of apparent diffusion coefficient（ADC）values and the feature of the cranial bone in the pituitary adenomas patients with different levels of prolactin（PRL）.Methods A total of 37 patients with pituitary adenoma and 20 healthy volunteers（serum prolactin 7.5～21.7 ng/ml,as control group G1）underwent routine MR and axial EPI-DWI scan（b=0,500 s/mm2）.The patients were divided into group G2（PRL 26.72 ng/ml,n =7）,group G3（PRL 26.72~200 ng/ml,n =17）,and group G4（PRL200 ng/ml,n =13）.The signal intensity of the interested regions（ROIs）was measured on DWI maps containing frontal,parietal,occipital bone marrow.The averaged ADC values were calculated among the 4 groups and compared with case groups and control group.The correlation between prolactin levels in patients with pituitary adenomas and ADC values of their skull bone marrow was explored.Results All patients had a hyperintensity of skull bone marrow signal on DWI maps.The ADC values of frontal,parietal and occipital bone marrow were as follows：G1（1.11±0.21,1.18±0.18,1.16±0.15×10-3 mm2/s）,G2（0.95±0.20,0.86±0.12,1.09±0.11×10-3 mm2/s）,G3（0.99±0.16,0.83± 0.21,0.98±0.25×10-3 mm2/s）,G4（0.81±0.20,0.69±0.16,0.83±0.28×10-3 mm2/s）.The ADC values of G3 and G4 were lower than those of G1（P 0.05）.There was no significant difference（P 0.05）between G2 and G1.Conclusion The ADC values of skull bone marrow were negatively correlated with serum prolactin levels in patients with pituitary adenomas.DWI examination might be beneficial for the identification of pituitary adenomas.