The clinical value of virtual touch tissue quantification (VTQ)in the differential diagnosis of the benign and malignant liver tumor

Abstract

Objective The purpose of our study is to investigate the clinical value of virtual touch tissue quantification (VTQ)in the differential diagnosis of the benign and malignant liver tumor. Methods VTQ was used to inspect 53 patients with liver space-occupying lesions. Results After choosing the little lesions (the largest diameter less than 35 mm) from all the case groups, the VTQ value of the malignant group was higher than the hepatic hemangioma group(with significant differences among the different groups, P>0.05). Through the analysis of receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), the optimal cut-off point as diagnosis reference value for differential diagnosis between malignant and benign groups was available. When the Area under the curve was 0.778, and with the VTQ value of 1.91 m/s, the sensitivity, specificity and Youden index was 78.6%, 90.0%, 0.686 respectively. The correlation analysis showed that the VTQ values of the lesion was positively correlated with the largest diameter of the lesion in the liver hemangioma group, with significant statistically differences (P<0.05). The correlation index was 0.812. Conclusions VTQ could provide a new effective way to benign and malignant liver lesions in differential diagnosis. Key words: Liver neoplasms/US; Diagnosis, differential; Elasticity imaging techniques