PURPOSE

We aimed to investigate histogram analysis of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) and conventional diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to distinguish between deep myometrial invasion and superficial myometrial invasion in endometrial carcinoma (EC).

METHODS

A total of 118 pathologically confirmed EC patients with preoperative DWI were included. The data were postprocessed with a DKI (b value of 0, 700, 1400, and 2000 s/mm2) model for quantitation of apparent diffusion values (D) and apparent kurtosis coefficient values (K) for non-Gaussian distribution. The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) was postprocessed with a conventional DWI model (b values of 0 and 800 s/mm2). A whole-tumor analysis approach was used. Comparisons of the histogram parameters of D, K, and ADC were carried out for the deep myometrial invasion and superficial myometrial invasion subgroups. Diagnostic performance of the imaging parameters was assessed.

RESULTS

The Dmean, D10th, and D90th in deep myometrial invasion group were significantly lower than those in superficial invasion group (P < 0.001, P < 0.001, and P = 0.023, respectively), as well as the ADCmean, ADC10th, and ADC90th (P = 0.001, P = 0.001, and P = 0.042, respectively). The Kmean and K90th were significantly higher in deep invasion group than those in superficial myometrial invasion group (P = 0.002 and P = 0.026, respectively). The D10th, Kmean, and ADC10th had a relatively higher area under the curve (AUC) (0.72, 0.66, and 0.71, respectively) than other parameters for distinguishing deep myometrial invasion of EC. D10th showed a relatively higher AUC than ADC10th for the differentiation of lesions with deep myometrial invasion from those with superficial myometrial invasion (0.72 vs. 0.71), but the variation was not statistically significant (P = 0.35).

CONCLUSION

Distribution of DKI and conventional DWI parameters characterized by histogram analysis may represent an indicator for deep myometrial invasion in EC. Both DKI and DWI models showed relatively equivalent effectiveness.