Application of magnetic resonance neuroimaging in determining the relationship between tumors and peripheral nerves

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is commonly used to analyze the relationship between tu-mors and nerves before surgery. However, the application value of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), and post-processing techniques needs further elucidation. Purpose: To assess the value of DTI, DWI, and various post-processing techniques in determining the relationship between tumors and nerves. Material and Methods: The participants were 42 patients diagnosed with peripheral nerve-related tumors and 20 healthy con-trols. DTI and DWI scans were performed before surgery, and then DTI unidirectional maximum intensity projection (MIP) post-processing and DWI subtraction of unidirectionally encoded images for suppression of heavily isotropic objects (DWISUSHI) postprocessing techniques were used to observe the relationship between the mass and the tar -get nerves. The mean apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of nerves was compared among the target neural origin group, non-target neural origin group, and healthy control group using the paired Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Results: The diagnostic coincidence rates of preoperative DTI and DWI findings with postoperative pathology were 88.1% and 100%, respectively. DTI images were of poor quality when compared to DWISUSHI (P < 0.05). The mean ADC value of the target neural origin group was greater than that of the non-target neural origin group and the healthy control group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Both DTI and DWISUSHI can stereoscopically display the relationship between peripheral nerves and tumors, but the latter contributes to better quality of the reconstructed images.