Diffusion MR: A New Diagnostic Tool for Elastofibroma Dorsi

Diffusion MR: A New Diagnostic Tool for Elastofibroma Dorsi

Elastofibroma dorsi is a benign lesion commonly presents as a palpable enlarging mass at the inferior pole of the scapula. Clinical presentation and radiological characteristics are often enough to suggest an accurate diagnosis.

Increased awareness of the characteristic appearance and location of these benign lesions will increase radiologic diagnosis and decrease the need for biopsy.

Ten patients were admitted with a complaint of asymptomatic or painful subcutaneous masses localized at subscapulary region. Thorax computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a new feasible technique in differential diagnosis with malignancy and probable diagnosis of elastofibroma dorsi and diffusion-weighted MRI were used for diagnosis. Surgery was applied to all patients, frozen-section biopsies of the lesions at the preoperative period, and final pathologies were all benign.

Totally resection of whole lesions as en-bloc excision without any rest was performed at all patients. Postoperative and follow-up periods were uneventful.

Diffusion MRI can play an important role in the future and save the patients, especially medically poor ones, from the potential risks of surgery. Necessary further examinations for probable bilaterally lesions will save the patient from the risk of a second operation.

In this study, we aimed to assess the reproducibility and reliability of a three-dimensional laser scanner (3DLS) in measuring the upper limb volume of BRCL women undergoing a 2-week complete decongestive therapy (CDT).3DLS and CM were used to measure the upper limb volume in a cohort of BCRL women before (T0) and after (T1) a 2-week CDT.

We evaluated: a) correlation between 3DLS and CM at both time points; b) level of agreement and the consistency of the different measurements at both time points; c) correlation between the inter-rater operator analysis in terms of total limb volume differences before and after rehabilitative treatment of both circumferential method and laser scanning 3D in breast cancer related lymphedema patients.

Taken together, 43 BCRL women (age 51.1 ± 5.4 years) were included.

Both 3DLS and CM showed a significant inter and intra-operator correlation in the arm volume measurement at both time-points (T0: r2=0.99, p<0.0001; T1: r2=0.99, p<0.0001). 3DLS showed a strong correlation with CM (r2=0.99, p<0.0001) in terms of volume measurement and provided greater intra-operator correlation (r2=0.92 vs. 0.62) in detecting volume variations after the treatment (T1-T0).

3DLS confirmed to be highly sensitive, cheap and easy-to-use in the evaluation of the upper limb volume in BCRL women before and after a rehabilitative treatment. These findings suggest that augmented reality technologies might be very useful in oncological rehabilitation.

By Mashid

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