The role of MRI in comparison between benign and malignant chest wall masses in correlation with pathology

Abstract

Background Tumors that arise from the chest wall (including bone structures such as the sternum, clavicle, scapula, and ribs) or from adjacent soft tissues are less common than other parts of the body, and so the resulting unfamiliarity can make it difficult to limit the number of possible diagnoses. These tumors have a wide range of possibilities, including primary chest wall tumors arising from the bone or soft tissue, which are subdivided into malignant and benign tumors, and the secondary metastatic deposits. The aim of the study is to investigate the ability of MRI with diffusion sequence in differentiation between benign and malignant chest wall masses, which is subsequently reflected in the management of chest wall masses patients. Main body MRI has superior soft-tissue resolution and value for local assessment of primary tumors and accurate tissue characterization and plays a key role in preoperative staging to assess for multi-spatial and multi-compartment involvement. ADC values were obtained in 31 patients, and the mean ADC values of benign (13 patients) chest wall masses were 1.31 ± 0.50 × 10−3 mm2/s while the mean ADC values of the malignant (18 patients) chest wall masses were 0.98 ± 0.36 × 10−3 mm2/s. There was a statistically significant difference between the ADC values obtained from the malignant and benign chest wall masses (P < 0.001). Conclusion This study demonstrates that diffusion-weighted MR imaging is a growing imaging modality to predict the histopathological differentiation of malignant from benign chest wall masses.