Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in characterization of pediatric neck masses

Background: In paediatric patients, neck masses frequently seen. Quick and accurate diagnosis directly affects treatment success. Characterizing neck masses has been done using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. It is anticipated that the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) will change depending on the lesion's cellular densities. Aim of the Work: This research aimed to evaluate the use of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) for the characterization of paediatric neck masses. Patients and Methods: this work involved thirty pediatric participants (14 males and 16 females) with their ages ranged from 7-17 years. In 12 instances, the final diagnosis was verified by histological analysis; in the other cases, it was verified by radiographic and clinical correlation. All participants had convectional MRI, DWI-MRI with calculating value of ADC were performed. Results: value of ADC for total 30 patients was range from 0.46 to 2.77 (×10-3 mm²/s), with mean 1.32 ± 0.65. Visual assessment of DW-MRI is able to distinguish between benign and cancerous lesions. There was 11 benign non inflammatory with ADC value mean ± sd (1.34±1.0) (×10-3 mm²/s), 18 children had benign inflammatory with ADC value mean ± sd (1.32±0.34) (×10-3 mm²/s) and 1 malignant case with ADC value (1.15 ×10-3 mm²/s). Conclusion: A novel and promising noninvasive imaging method for characterising paediatric neck masses is DW-MRI, which may assist in distinguishing between benign and malignant tumours. Therefore, DW-MRI of paediatric neck masses may be integrated into standard MR imaging.