Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Radio-diagnosis

Neoplastic portal vein thrombi in patients with HCC gravely affect the prognosis and the subsequent treatment options. Diffusion weighted imaging is an MR technology that measures the diffusion of water molecules in the tissue. So characterization of tissue is enabled; in malignant tissue, the diffusion of water molecule is restricted and so lower ADC values are noted as compared to benign lesions. Therefore, to determine the role of DW image in differentiation between the malignant and bland portal vein thrombosis, we studied the ADC values and ratios in 74 patients; 55 patients have HCC with malignant portal vein thrombosis and 19 patients have HCC with bland portal vein thrombosis. We found that the ADC ratio was significantly different between the neoplastic and bland cohorts with a cutoff value = 1.2 mm 2 /sec helped distinguish between the neoplastic and bland portal vein thrombi. While there is no statistically significant difference between the ADC values of the thrombi in the neoplastic and bland cohorts. So the DW image can help in differentiation between the malignant and bland portal vein thrombosis through measuring the ADC ratio

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