Subtype Differentiation of Small (< 4 cm) Solid Renal Mass Using Histogram Analysis of Reduced Field-of-View Diffusion Weighted MRI at 3-T

To evaluate the utility of volumetric histogram analysis originated from reduced field-of-view (r-FOV) diffusion-weighted (DW) imaging for small (< 4cm) solid renal mass subtypes at 3-T MR. Differences of ADC histogram parameters among different subtypes of renal tumor were compared. Benign tumors had significantly lower mean ADC, median ADC, 10^th, 25^th, 75^th, 90^th percentiles ADC, SD and entropy values compared to malignant tumors. ADC histogram analysis of the entire lesion was complementary to the mean ADC measure and may have a certain value to help differentiate the majority of subtypes of small solid renal tumor.