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.

Keywords

• magnetic resonance imaging
• carcinoma
• non-small-cell lung
• diagnostic imaging