Synthetic MRI in differentiating benign from metastatic retropharyngeal lymph nodes: combination with diffusion-weighted imaging

This study aimed to evaluate MAGiC imaging (one synthetic MRI technique, syMRI) and its combination with diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in discriminating benign from metastatic retropharyngeal lymph nodes (RLNs). With MAGiC derived relaxation parameters, 58 patients with 21 benign and 42 metastatic RLNs were measured. The resultant T1, T2, PD and T1SD values showed significant different values between benign and metastatic RLNs with an optimal diagnostic performance from T1SD. Moreover, the combination of MAGiC, DWI, and morphological features demonstrated a significantly improved performance on overall diagnosis.