Time to peak enhancement of malignant hypervascular hepatic tumors versus that of the aorta evaluating by test bolus sequence of magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract Purpose To determine the relationship between time to peak enhancement (TPE) of malignant hypervascular hepatic tumors and that of the aorta. Method Sixty patients with malignant hypervascular hepatic tumors (48 with hepatocellular carcinoma and 12 with metastatic neuroendocrine tumor) who received abdominal MRI with test bolus sequence between January 2015 and May 2019 were enrolled. The test bolus images were monitored every 3 seconds after the injection of 2 mL gadolinium-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd-DTPA) and 10 mL saline flush, to evaluate the TPE of the tumors and aorta. We used linear regression with a least squares approach to show the relationship between TPE of the malignant hypervascular hepatic tumors and that of the aorta. Results TPE of malignant hypervascular hepatic tumors and abdominal aorta were 43.4 ± 12.9 and 23.3 ± 7.4 seconds, respectively (mean ± standard deviation). In univariate regression analysis, the TPE of malignant hypervascular hepatic tumors have a positively linear correlation with that of the aorta by the following equation: (TPE of malignant hypervascular hepatic tumor) = 1.4 X (TPE of the aorta) + 10.6 sec (r = 0.65, p  Conclusions TPE of malignant hypervascular hepatic tumors can be predicted by a simple linear transformation from that of the aorta.