Differentiation of Skull Base Chondrosarcomas, Chordomas, and Metastases: Utility of DWI and Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Perfusion MR Imaging
Yoshiaki Ota, Eric Liao, Arístides A. Capizzano, Akira Baba, Ryo Kurokawa, Mariko Kurokawa, Ashok Srinivasan
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Differentiation of skull base tumors, including chondrosarcomas, chordomas, and metastases, on conventional imaging remains a challenge. We aimed to test the utility of DWI and dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging for skull base tumors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: test for each pair of tumors were used. RESULTS: = .002 and .002, respectively) using the Kruskal-Wallis H test. The diagnostic performances of fractional plasma volume for each pair of tumors showed areas under curve of 0.86-0.99 (95% CI, 0.70-1.0); the forward volume transfer constant differentiated metastases from chondrosarcomas/chordomas with areas under curve of 0.82 and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.67-0.98), respectively; and the normalized mean ADC distinguished chondrosarcomas from chordomas/metastases with areas under curve of 0.96 and 0.95 (95% CI, 0.88-1.0), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: DWI and dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging sequences can be beneficial for differentiating the 3 common skull base tumors.