Differentiation of multiple myeloma and metastases: Use of axial diffusion-weighted MR imaging in addition to standard MR imaging at 3T.

Background: Metastasis and multiple myeloma are common malignant bone marrow lesions which may be difficult to distinguish because of similar imaging findings. The purpose of this study was to determine the value of adding diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to standard MR imaging to differentiate multiple myeloma from metastasis.

Methods: 25 patients with metastasis and 18 patients with multiple myeloma underwent 3T MR imaging with DWI (b = 0, 800 s/mm2) were enrolled. They all had pathologically confirmed bone lesions and were in a treatment naïve state. Two readers who were blind of final diagnosis measured the average ADC (ADCav) and minimum ADC (ADCmin) on the DWI. They then estimated the diagnosis, based on the standard MR imaging and measured ADC values. Another reader performed histogram analysis on the whole tumor volume and obtained mean ADC (ADCvol), standard deviation (SDvol), skewness, and kurtosis. Comparison of the obtained values from DWI was performed by the t-test or Mann-Whitney U test. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with areas under the curve (AUC) was used to obtain the cut off values and to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the two readers.

Results: ADCav, ADCmin, and ADCvol of multiple myeloma were significantly lower than those of metastasis: ADCav, 752 μm2/sec versus 1081 μm2/sec; ADCmin, 704 μm2/sec vs 835 μm2/sec; ADCvol 761 μm2/sec vs 1184 μm2/sec (p < .001). In histogram analysis, ADC values of multiple myeloma showed narrow distribution than metastasis: SDvol, 144 vs 257 (p < .001). Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve was significantly higher with additive DWI than standard MR alone: 0.762 vs 0.953; 0.706 vs 0.950 (p < .05) for two readers.

Conclusions: This study suggested that the addition of axial DWI to standard MR imaging can be helpful to diagnose multiple myeloma from metastasis at 3T.