Potential Diagnostic Efficiency of Intravoxel Incoherent Motion-based Virtual Magnetic Resonance Elastography in Pulmonary Neoplasms

Motivation: Exploring non-invasive techniques with the potential of replacing invasive pathological analysis of pulmonary neoplasms remains urgent. Goal(s): To investigate the feasibility of IVIM-based vMRE to provide quantitative estimates of tissue stiffness in pulmonary neoplasms and to verify the diagnostic performance in distinguishing neoplasm property. Approach: sADC and virtual stiffness values of neoplasm were extracted, and the diagnostic performance of vMRE in distinguishing benign and malignant and detailed pathological type were explored. Results: Virtual stiffness values of malignant neoplasms were significantly higher than benign ones. Subsequent sub-type analyses showed adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma were mostly stiffer than non-specific benign neoplasms. Impact: IVIM-based vMRE has good feasibility in reflecting stiffness of pulmonary neoplasms. Virtual stiffness and sADC values showed significant difference between malignant and benign lesions.The application of non-invasive vMRE is promising as a new method for clinical diagnosis.