Sensitivity and specificity of magnetic resonance imaging in routine diagnosis of pulmonary lesions: a comparison with computed tomography

BACKGROUND: State-of-the-art thoracic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays a complementary role in the assessment of pulmonary nodules/masses which potentially indicate to cancer. We aimed to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of MRI in diagnosis of pulmonary nodules/masses. METHODS: Sixty-eight patients with computed tomography (CT)-detected pulmonary nodules/masses underwent 3T MRI (T1-VIBE, T1-starVIBE, T2-fBLADE turbo spin-echo, and T2-SPACE). The detection rate was calculated for each of the different subgroups of pulmonary nodules according to lung imaging reporting and data system (Lung-RADS). The four MRI sequences were compared in terms of detection rate and image quality-signal to noise ratio (SNR), contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and 5-point scoring scale. Agreement of lesion size measurement between CT and MRI was assessed by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The picture-SNR, lesion-SNR and CNR of each sequence were analyzed by Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: In total, 232 pulmonary lesions were detected by CT. The CT showed 86 solid nodules (SNs) <6 mm, 15 SNs between 6–8 mm, 35 SNs between 8–15 mm, and 52 SNs between 15–30 mm. The T1-VIBE, T1-starVIBE, T2-fBLADE TSE and T2-SPACE sequences accurately detected 141 SNs (141/188, 75%/83.3%), 150 SNs (150/188, 79.8%/100%), 166 SNs (166/188, 88.3%/66.7%) and 169 SNs (169/188, 89.9%/53.3%), respectively. Four ground glass nodules (GGNs) (4/6) were detected by T2-fBLADE TSE. Twelve part-solid nodules (PSNs) (12/22) were detected by T1-VIBE and 20 PSNs (20/22) by T2-SPACE. A total of 100 lesions (2.2±1.4 cm, 0.8–7.3 cm) were accurately detected and measured by the four MRI sequences with ICC >0.96. The picture-SNR, lesion-SNR and CNR by T1-starVIBE were higher than those by T1-VIBE (P<0.001). The lesion-SNR and CNR by T2-fBLADE TSE were higher than those by T2-SPACE (P=0.006, 0.038). 86% of images by T1-starVIBE, 92% by T2-fBLADE TSE, 90% by T2-SPACE and 93% by T1-VIBE were scored 3 or more. CONCLUSIONS: MRI achieves high sensitivity and specificity for different type of pulmonary nodules detection and is an effective alternative to CT as a diagnostic tool for pulmonary nodules.