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. 2020 Mar 9:12:1733-1739.
doi: 10.2147/CMAR.S244034. eCollection 2020.

Evaluation of Contrast-Enhanced Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in the Detection of Retropharyngeal Lymph Node Metastases in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients

Jie Chen  1 , Jingwen Luo  2 , Xia He  3 , Chenjing Zhu  3
Affiliations

Evaluation of Contrast-Enhanced Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in the Detection of Retropharyngeal Lymph Node Metastases in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients

Jie Chen et al. Cancer Manag Res. .

Abstract

Introduction: We performed this study to explore the diagnostic accuracies and cutoff values of contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the detection and diagnosis of metastatic retropharyngeal lymph nodes (RLNs) in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

Methods: One hundred and twenty-eight patients with a total of 159 RLNs were included in the study. The sizes of maximal and minimal axial diameters of each node on both contrast-enhanced CT and MRI images were measured. The characteristics of the RLNs (malignant or benign), as well as the survival of patients, were classified based on the results of follow-up MRI.

Results: RLN size cutoffs of 4-11 mm for minimal axial diameter were used. We found that MRI showed higher sensitivity while CT demonstrated higher specificity. The reasonable criterion for the diagnosis of metastatic RLNs in MRI was a minimal axial diameter of ≥6 mm, which yielded a sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 0.71, 0.82 and 10.88.

Conclusion: The radiologic criteria that should be used for the assessment of RLN metastases in NPC patients are nodes with a minimal axial diameter of ≥6 mm on MR images.

Keywords: MRI; cutoff; metastasis; nasopharyngeal carcinoma; retropharyngeal lymph node.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Sensitivity, (B) specificity for contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) and (C) sensitivity, (D) specificity for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the diagnosis of metastatic retropharyngeal lymph node. Abbreviation: CI, confidence interval.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve for (A) contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) and (B) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Abbreviations: AUC, area under the curve; SE, standard deviation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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