Lesion discrimination with breath-hold hepatic diffusion-weighted imaging: A meta-analysis
Abstract
AIM: To investigate the diagnostic capability of breath-hold diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for differentiation between malignant and benign hepatic lesions. METHODS: A total of 614 malignant liver lesions (132 hepatocellular carcinomas, 468 metastases and 14 intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas) and 291 benign liver lesions (102 hemangiomas, 158 cysts, 24 focal nodular hyperplasia, 1 angiomyolipoma and 6 hepatic adenomas) were included from seven studies (eight sets of data). RESULTS: The pooled sensitivity and specificity of breath-hold DWI were 0.93 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.91-0.95] and 0.87 (95%CI: 0.83-0.91), respectively. The positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio were 7.28 (95%CI: 4.51-11.76) and 0.09 (95%CI: 0.05-0.17), respectively. The P value for χ (2) heterogeneity for all pooled estimates was 0.05). CONCLUSION: Breath-hold DWI is useful for differentiating between malignant and benign hepatic lesions. The diffusion characteristics of benign lesions that mimic malignant ones have rarely been investigated.
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