Clinical value of CT perfusion imaging in differential diagnosis of parotid gland tumors

AIM:To explore the usefulness of CT perfusion imaging in quantitatively judging the blood patterns of the benign tumors and the malignancies of the parotid,and to evaluate its clinical value in differentiating benign tumors from malignant tumors of the parotid.METHODS:Fifty-three patients were included in this study(35 with benign tumors and 18 with malignant tumors).All the tumors were confirmed histopathologically and examined with CT perfusion before operations.The parameters of CT perfusion were obtained by using Philips perfusion software,including time-density curve(TDC),perfusion(mL·100 g-1·min-1),peak height(PH:HU),time to peak(TTP:s),blood volume(BV:mL·100 g-1)and mean transit time(MTT:s).Wilcoxon signed-rank test for paired data was used to determine the statistical differences of parameters between the benign and malignant tumors.RESULTS:The median and quartile range of perfusion,PH,TTP,BV,MTT were 73.50 mL·100 g-1·min-1(18.70,113.30),34.50 HU(17.70,53.05),20.00 s(13.60,34.40),38.50 mL·100 g-1(29.10,63.30),7.55 s(4.50,28.70)respectively in benign tumors,versus 135.93 mL·100 g-1·min-1(101.35,195.18),49.06 HU(32.65,59.40),12.85 s(11.27,14.60),67.50 mL·100 g-1(52.35,109.50),6.02 s(5.05,7.60)in malignant tumors.Except for PH and MTT,the differences of perfusion,TTP and BV between benign and malignant tumors were statistically significant(P0.05).The difference of TDC among the Warthin's tumor,other benign tumors and malignant tumors was also statistically significant(P0.05).CONCLUSION:On the basis of this study,the parameters of CT perfusion,BF,BV,TTP and TDC were valuable in differential diagnosis for benign and malignant tumors of the parotid gland.