IMR Press / FBL / Volume 20 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.2741/4326

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Review
MRI in differentiation of benign and malignant tongue tumors
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1 Department of Radiology, The Forth Hospital in Jinan, Jinan, China
2 Department of AnestheSiology the Forth Hospital in Jinan, Jinan, China
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2015, 20(4), 614–620; https://doi.org/10.2741/4326
Published: 1 January 2015
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pathogenesis and diagnostic modalities in cancer)
Abstract

The differential diagnosis of benign and malignant tongue tumors is crucial to treatment and prognosis. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the preferred modality for the evaluation of tongue carcinomas. Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI can reflect the density, integrity, and leakiness of tumor vasculature, and the time-intensity curve (TIC) patterns derived from DCE-MRI results can differentiate benign from malignant tumors based on differences in vascular structure. Diffusion-weighted (DW)-MRI is based on the random thermal motion of water molecules and can provide information on the cellular and tissue microstructure of the tumor. A low apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) derived from DW-MRIs may indicate a malignant tumor. Thus, ADC values and TIC parameters yield complementary information on tumors that may improve diagnostic accuracy. Indeed, the combination of DCE-MRI and DW-MRI is a comprehensive reflection of the pathological status of the tongue tumor, so utilization of these MRI modalities may facilitate the diagnostic differentiation of benign from malignant tumors of the tongue.

Keywords
Diffusion
Dynamic
enhancement
MRI
Tongue
Tumor
Review
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