Differentiation of orbital lymphoma and idiopathic orbital inflammatory pseudotumor: combined diagnostic value of conventional MRI and histogram analysis of ADC maps

BACKGROUND: The overlap of morphological feature and mean ADC value restricted clinical application of MRI in the differential diagnosis of orbital lymphoma and idiopathic orbital inflammatory pseudotumor (IOIP). In this paper, we aimed to retrospectively evaluate the combined diagnostic value of conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and whole-tumor histogram analysis of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps in the differentiation of the two lesions. METHODS: In total, 18 patients with orbital lymphoma and 22 patients with IOIP were included, who underwent both conventional MRI and diffusion weighted imaging before treatment. Conventional MRI features and histogram parameters derived from ADC maps, including mean ADC (ADC(mean)), median ADC (ADC(median)), skewness, kurtosis, 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentiles of ADC (ADC(10), ADC(25), ADC(75), ADC(90)) were evaluated and compared between orbital lymphoma and IOIP. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the most valuable variables for discriminating. Differential model was built upon the selected variables and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was also performed to determine the differential ability of the model. RESULTS: Multivariate logistic regression showed ADC(10) (P = 0.023) and involvement of orbit preseptal space (P = 0.029) were the most promising indexes in the discrimination of orbital lymphoma and IOIP. The logistic model defined by ADC(10) and involvement of orbit preseptal space was built, which achieved an AUC of 0.939, with sensitivity of 77.30% and specificity of 94.40%. CONCLUSIONS: Conventional MRI feature of involvement of orbit preseptal space and ADC histogram parameter of ADC(10) are valuable in differential diagnosis of orbital lymphoma and IOIP.