Quantitative T1ρ MRI of the Head and Neck Discriminates Carcinoma and Benign Hyperplasia in the Nasopharynx

Background And Purpose: T1ρ imaging is a new quantitative MR imaging pulse sequence with the potential to discriminate between malignant and benign tissue. In this study, we evaluated the capability of T1ρ imaging to characterize tissue by applying T1ρ imaging to malignant and benign tissue in the nasopharynx and to normal tissue in the head and neck.

Materials And Methods: Participants with undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma and benign hyperplasia of the nasopharynx prospectively underwent T1ρ imaging. T1ρ measurements obtained from the histogram analysis for nasopharyngeal carcinoma in 43 participants were compared with those for benign hyperplasia and for normal tissue (brain, muscle, and parotid glands) in 41 participants using the Mann-Whitney test. The area under the curve of significant T1ρ measurements was calculated and compared using receiver operating characteristic analysis and the Delong test, respectively. A < .05 indicated statistical significance.

Results: There were significant differences in T1ρ measurements between nasopharyngeal carcinoma and benign hyperplasia and between nasopharyngeal carcinoma and normal tissue (all, < .05). Compared with benign hyperplasia, nasopharyngeal carcinoma showed a lower T1ρ mean (62.14 versus 65.45 × ms), SD (12.60 versus 17.73 × ms), and skewness (0.61 versus 0.76) (all < .05), but no difference in kurtosis (= .18). The T1ρ SD showed the highest area under the curve of 0.95 compared with the T1ρ mean (area under the curve  = 0.72) and T1ρ skewness (area under the curve  = 0.72) for discriminating nasopharyngeal carcinoma and benign hyperplasia (all, < .05).

Conclusions: Quantitative T1ρ imaging has the potential to discriminate malignant from benign and normal tissue in the head and neck.