Abstract
Sonography and color-coded Doppler sonography are the methods of first choice in diagnosing pathological changes of the testes. The MRI technique was tested using a dynamic technique to evaluate the possibility of differentiating between benign and malignant testicular lesions. The testes of 20 volunteers and of 15 patients were examined in a field strength of 1.5 Tesla (Philips Gyroscan S 15) with a multislice T 1-weighted fast field echo (FFE) sequence before and every minute after the injection of 0.1 mmol/kg Gd-DTPA. The histopathological evaluation after the MRI examination revealed five seminomas, three mixed tumors, one teratocarcinoma, one embryonal carcinoma, one Sertoli tumor, two dermoid cysts, one chronic epididymitis/fibrosis and one necrosis/atrophy. In malignant lesions the maximum increase of signal intensity (SI) after injecting contrast medium was significantly higher (p < 0.001) compared with normal testes, whereas benign lesions showed a lower or similar maximum relative signal change compared with the volunteer group. If these early observations can be confirmed in a larger number of patients, dynamic MRI seems to be able to differentiate between benign and malignant testicular lesions. Dynamic MRI might become an additional tool with high diagnostic accuracy that is independent of the examiner.
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Reinges, M.H.T., Kaiser, W.A., Miersch, W.D. et al. Dynamic MRI of benign and malignant testicular lesions: preliminary observations. Eur. Radiol. 5, 615–622 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190927
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190927