Characterization of adrenal lesions at chemical-shift MRI: a direct intraindividual comparison of in- and opposed-phase imaging at 1.5 T and 3 T

Abstract

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this article is to perform an intraindividual comparison between 1.5 T and 3 T chemical-shift MRI in differentiating adrenal adenomas and nonadenomas, including comparison of quantitative thresholds. MATERIALS AND METHODS. In this retrospective study, 37 adrenal lesions in 36 patients (20 men and 16 women; mean [± SD] age, 66.7 ± 12.9 years; 27 benign adenomas in 27 patients; 10 nonadenomas in nine patients) imaged at 1.5 T and 3 T were identified. Two readers qualitatively assessed intralesional signal loss between in- and opposed-phase images. One reader placed ROIs on adrenal lesions, spleen, liver, and muscle. Quantitative measures of signal loss, such as signal intensity (SI) index, adrenal-to-spleen ratio, adrenal-to-liver ratio, and adrenal-to-muscle ratio, were calculated. Qualitative and quantitative measures between field strengths were assessed with McNemar test and ROC analysis, respectively. RESULTS. Accuracy in qualitative adenoma identification (86.5% [32/37] at 1.5 T and 81.1% [30/37] at 3 T for reader 1; 81.1% [30/37] at 1.5 T and 83.8% [31/37] at 3 T for reader 2; both p ≥ 0.180) was equivalent at both field strengths. AUCs were not statistically significantly different between field strengths for quantitative measures: AUCs at 1.5 T versus 3 T were 0.956 versus 0.915 for SI index, 0.963 versus 0.870 for adrenal-to-spleen ratio, 0.935 versus 0.852 for adrenal-to-liver ratio, and 0.948 versus 0.948 for adrenal-to-muscle ratio (all p > 0.11). The optimal threshold for SI index was lower at 3 T (> 7.4%) than at 1.5 T (> 21.6%) but had similar sensitivity (1.5 T, 92.6% [25/27]; 3 T, 88.9% [24/27]) and specificity (1.5 T, 90.0% [9/10]; 3 T, 90.0% [9/10]). CONCLUSION. Chemical-shift imaging has similar diagnostic efficacy for differentiating adrenal adenomas and nonadenomas at 1.5 T and 3 T. However, quantitative measures have different thresholds for this differentiation at 3 T; in particular, the commonly applied SI index is much lower at 3 T.

Keywords: MRI; adrenal glands; chemical-shift imaging.