The clinical value of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in differential diagnosis of malignant and benign ovarian lesions

Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) is widely used in preoperative diagnosis of various tumors. We investigated the clinical value of DCE-MRI in differential diagnosis of malignant and benign ovarian lesions. The study involved 48 subjects with surgical pathology-confirmed ovarian tumors with solid components. Early dynamic phase enhancement performances of the ovarian lesions in patients were assessed, including the enhancement pattern, time-signal intensity curve (TIC), signal intensity rate at the initial 60 s (SI₆₀), time to peak within 200 s (TTP₂₀₀), and slope ratio. There were significant differences in enhancement patterns between benign and malignant ovarian tumors (P < 0.05). A total of 30 malignant tumors (30/31) displayed type I TIC, 8 benign tumors (8/13) showed type III TIC, and significant differences were found in TIC type between malignant and benign ovarian lesions (P < 0.01). Benign ovarian tumors showed lower SI₆₀ (%) and slope ratio, as well as significantly prolonged TTP₂₀, compared to malignant ovarian tumors (all P < 0.01). The microvessel count (MVC) of malignant tumors was significantly higher than that of benign tumors (P < 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses revealed that DCE-MRI provided an optimal diagnostic performance with threshold values of SI₆₀ at 83.40 %, TTP₂₀₀ at 77.65 s, and slope ratio at 4.12. These findings revealed that DCE-MRI provides critical information required for differential diagnosis of malignant and benign ovarian lesions.