Crasnean Emil, Nechifor Ruben Emanuel, Fodor Liviu, Almășan Oana, Sollmann Nico, Ban Alina, Roman Raluca, Mitre Ileana, Bran Simion, Onișor Florin, Dinu Cristian, Băciuț Mihaela, Hedeșiu Mihaela
Department of Maxillofacial Surgery and Implantology, Faculty of Dentistry, "Iuliu Hatieganu" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, International Institute for the Advanced Studies of Psychotherapy and Applied Mental Health, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400489 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Cancers (Basel). 2025 Jul 3;17(13):2237. doi: 10.3390/cancers17132237.
This study aimed at evaluating apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in the pre-treatment stages of NPC for establishing comparative quantitative parameters between children and adolescents compared to adults. A retrospective multicentric imaging study was conducted in three medical centers by collecting patient data over a 5-year timeframe. Patients were included in the study based on the following criteria: histopathologically proven carcinoma of the nasopharynx with all available medical records. The total sample included 20 patients (6 pediatric patients and 14 adults). A quantitative analysis of the ADC maps was performed. Two radiologists manually drew the region of interest (ROI) on ADC maps using the whole tumor on all magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) slices. The mean ADC was extracted for each patient and each radiologist's evaluation. Differences in ADC values between pediatric and adult patients were evaluated using an independent samples -test, with normality and variance assumptions tested via the Shapiro-Wilk and Levene's tests, respectively. -values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The mean ADC values extracted from the initial pre-treatment diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in children were 712.22 × 10 mm/s, compared to adults in whom the mean ADC values were 877.34 × 10 mm/s. We found a statistically significant difference between the mean ADC values of pediatric patients and adult patients, t (17.44) = -3.15, = 0.006, with the mean ADC values of pediatric patients (M = 712.22, standard deviation [SD] = 57.03) being lower, on average, than the mean ADC values of adult patients (M = 877.34, SD = 175.25). Our results showed significantly lower ADC values in pediatric patients than in adults, independent of tumor T-stage. Additionally, early-stage tumors, particularly in children, tended to exhibit even lower ADC values, suggesting potential biological distinctions across age groups.
本研究旨在评估鼻咽癌（NPC）治疗前阶段的表观扩散系数（ADC）值，以建立儿童和青少年与成人之间的比较性定量参数。在三个医疗中心进行了一项回顾性多中心影像学研究，收集了5年时间范围内的患者数据。根据以下标准将患者纳入研究：经组织病理学证实的鼻咽癌且有所有可用的病历记录。总样本包括20名患者（6名儿科患者和14名成人）。对ADC图进行了定量分析。两名放射科医生在所有磁共振成像（MRI）切片上使用整个肿瘤在ADC图上手动绘制感兴趣区域（ROI）。提取每位患者和每位放射科医生评估的平均ADC值。使用独立样本t检验评估儿科和成人患者之间ADC值的差异，分别通过Shapiro-Wilk检验和Levene检验检验正态性和方差假设。p值小于0.05被认为具有统计学意义。儿童磁共振成像（MRI）初始治疗前扩散加权成像（DWI）数据中提取的平均ADC值为712.22×10⁻⁶mm²/s，而成人平均ADC值为877.34×10⁻⁶mm²/s。我们发现儿科患者和成人患者的平均ADC值之间存在统计学显著差异，t（17.44）=-3.15，p = 0.006，儿科患者的平均ADC值（M = 712.22，标准差[SD] = 57.03）平均低于成人患者的平均ADC值（M = 877.34，SD = 175.25）。我们
