Suggestive MR features of Whartin’s tumor with correlation between diffusion-weighted imaging and pathology

Abstract

A 54-year-old man without medical history presented with a right-sided tumor of the parotid gland. The consistency of the mass was soft. The patient was asymptomatic except for the self-palpation of the process. He had unremarkable clinical examination including neck nodal areas. The ‘conventional’ MRI examination gave significant clues for the diagnosis (Fig. A). The neoplasm displayed elevated signal intensity on unenhanced T1-weighted images (A) suggesting a colloid content and enhanced only slightly after paramagnetic contrast agent (CA) perfusion (B), which is a valuable criterion to distinguish it from other common benign (pleiomorphic adenoma) and malignant (carcinomas) neoplasms of the parotid gland which usually exhibit strong heterogeneous enhancement. Low contrast-enhancement was confirmed by subtracting pre- and post-contrast T1-weighted images (C).