The Clinical Use of Diffusion-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Oncological Biomarkers

Karen Bae¹, Daniel Ying¹, David Yerushalmi¹, Alice Kim¹, Jinha Park¹

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) has been suggested as a promising, non-invasive, yet quantitative tool to detect lesions. However, global implementation of DW-MRI as a means of assessing cancer faces challenges due to lack of quality assessments and no accepted standards for measurements and analysis. The purpose of this study was to address this issue by assessing a recently implemented liver DWI protocol at our institution - City of Hope National Medical Center. In this retrospective study, we investigated the apparent diffusion coefficient values of liver lesions and found a statistical difference between benign and malignant lesions (p<0.0001). These results were consistent with previously published reports and demonstrate the clinical benefit of adopting DWI as a standard sequence in a liver MRI protocol.