Using quantitative CT texture analysis to differentiate adrenal tumors / 实用放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the feasibility of using CT texture analysis to differentiate among lipid-poor adrenal adenoma,pheochromocytoma and adrenal metastases.Methods 66 lipid-poor adrenal adenoma,98 pheochromocytoma and 101 adrenal metastases lesions were analyzed retrospectively.All the patients had abdominal non-enhanced CT and adrenal enhanced CT scans.We used TexRAD software to analyze the textural features of CT images and compared the differences in each texture parameter among three adrenal lesions.Results On non-enhanced CT images,there were significant differences in Mean and Kurtosis at all the texture scales(SSF 0-6) among the three types of adrenal lesions (P<0.05),as well as SD at fine and coarse texture scale (SSF 2,6)(P<0.05).Entropy (SSF 0-3, 5-6) and MPP (SSF 0-2, 4-6) were significantly lower in lipid-poor adrenal adenoma and adrenal metastases than that in pheochromocytoma (P<0.05).There were significant differences in Skewness (SSF 0-3) among three types of lesions, which was lowest in pheochromocytoma and highest in adrenal metastases.On enhanced CT images, Mean, SD, Entrophy and MPP showed significantly differences among the three types of adrenal lesions at all the texture scales (SSF 0-6) (P<0.05), which were all highest in pheochromocytoma and lowest in adrenal metastases.Skewness (SSF 0) and Kurtosis (SSF 0, 2) were significantly lower in adrenal metastases than that in lipid-poor adrenal adenoma and pheochromocytoma (P<0.05).Conclusion There are significant differences in CT texture analysis parameters among lipid-poor adrenal adenoma,pheochromocytoma and adrenal metastases.CT texture analysis has potential clinical application values in differentiating these three adrenal lesions.