Differentiation of gastric glomus tumor from small gastric stromal tumor by computed tomography

OBJECTIVE: This study was performed to investigate the value of computed tomography (CT) in the differentiation of gastric glomus tumors (GGTs) and small gastric stromal tumors (GSTs). METHODS: Fifty-nine patients with pathologically confirmed GGTs (n = 11) and GSTs (n = 48) from 2006 to 2019 were retrospectively evaluated. All patients’ preoperative CT imaging features were analyzed. RESULTS: The following features were significantly different between GGTs and small GSTs: location in the antrum, endophytic growth, heterogeneous enhancement in the arterial phase, CT value in the arterial phase of ≥60.7 Hounsfield units (HU), CT value in the portal phase of ≥87.6 HU, degree of enhancement in the arterial phase of ≥29.9 HU, and degree of enhancement in the portal phase of ≥49.0 HU. A model including four randomly selected features among these seven criteria was built to differentiate GGTs from small GSTs with a sensitivity and specificity of 90.9% (10/11) and 100% (48/48), respectively. CONCLUSION: We identified seven features that are useful for differentiating GGTs from small GSTs. A combination of four of these seven criteria may increase the diagnostic accuracy.