Correlation of measurements from diffusion weighted MR imaging and FDG PET/CT in GIST patients: ADC versus SUV

Purpose

We investigated the correlation relationship between ADCs measured by MRI and SUVs measured by PET/CT of lesions on GIST (gastrointestinal stromal tumor) patients to verify if MR is able to replace or serve as an alternative to PET/CT in GIST staging and treatment monitoring.

Materials and methods

Between September 2010 and January 2011, five patients with histologically proven metastatic GIST in Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong were enrolled into our study. All patients underwent both MRI and PET/CT scans at prognosis. Pearson's correlations of twenty-nine lesions were conducted between 5 pairs of ADCs and SUVs values.

Results

Lesions in the liver, peritoneum or bowel loops were found by PET/CT and no extra-abdominal lesion was identified. All twenty-nine lesions are identifiable by MRI with sensitivity of 100%. Significant inverse correlation were found between ADC_mean and SUV_mean (P = 0.006), ADC_mean and SUV_max (P = 0.010), ADC_min and SUV_max (P = 0.014), ADC_min and SUV_mean (P = 0.026), rADC_min and rSUV_max (P = 0.047).

Conclusion

DWI is comparable to PET/CT in visually detecting the GIST lesions’ location. Significant inverse correlations were found between ADCs from DWIBS and SUVs from PET/CT on data of GIST patients. This finding demonstrates that DWI is potentially capable of offering similar information for diagnosis and treatment response evaluating in GIST's patients as PET/CT does. Furthermore, ADC_min, which is determined by single pixel, is not as reliable as ADC_mean, which is weighted average value of the whole lesion volume.