Intravoxel incoherent motion DWI with different mathematical models in predicting rectal adenoma with and without canceration

To evaluate the clinical value of intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with mono-exponential (ME), bi-exponential (BE), and stretched-exponential (SE) models for predicting rectal adenomas with canceration.Sixty patients with postoperative pathology-confirmed rectal adenoma (n = 31) and adenoma with canceration (n = 29) were enrolled and underwent IVIM-DWI scanning. The ME-derived apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), BE-derived true diffusion coefficient (D), pseudo-diffusion coefficient (D*), perfusion fraction (f), SE-derived distributed diffusion coefficient (DDC), and water molecular diffusion heterogeneity index (α) were measured. The differences in each parameter between adenoma and canceration were compared. Multivariate binary logistic regression analysis was used to establish models for predicting rectal adenomas with canceration. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was applied to evaluate diagnostic performances of each model in terms of sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under the curve (AUC).The AUCs of ADC, D, D*, f, DDC and α were 0.851 (95 % confidence interval, CI, 0.735-0.930), 0.895 (95 % CI, 0.789-0.960), 0.720 (95 % CI, 0.589-0.828), 0.791 (95 % CI, 0.667-0.886), 0.841 (95 % CI, 0.724-0.923) and 0.738 (95 % CI, 0.608-0.834), respectively. The AUCs of BE and SE models were 0.927 (95 % CI, 0.829-0.978) and 0.874 (95 % CI, 0.763-0.946), respectively. The AUC, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the derived four values (ADC, D, f, and DDC) from the combination of three models were 0.950, 96.6 % (95 % CI, 95.3-97.6 %), 80.6 % (95 % CI, 78.0-82.9 %), and 88.3 % (95 % CI, 86.2-90.2 %), respectively.ADC can easily and effectively predict rectal adenomas with canceration. The BE model has a better combination of sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of rectal adenoma canceration.