Pre-treatment MRI predictor of high-grade malignant parotid gland cancer

Objectives We aimed to evaluate pre-treatment MRI predictors of high-grade malignant parotid gland cancer by comparing MRI findings and texture parameters between high-grade and intermediate/low-grade parotid gland cancers. Methods Patients underwent a pre-treatment MRI and had a parotid gland cancer resection with pathological evaluation. Evaluation objectives included attributive factors such as age and gender, several MRI findings of T1- and T2-weighted images, post-contrast fat suppression T1-weighted images, ADC value and 40 texture parameters calculated from T2-weighted axial images. Such objects were compared between high-grade and intermediate/low-grade lesions. Results Of the parotid gland cancers surveyed, 39 were included for analysis. Of these, 18 were high-grade lesions, 2 were intermediate-grade lesions, and 19 were low-grade lesions. The high-grade group was significantly older than the low- and intermediate-grade groups ( p = 0.01). There were more males in the high-grade group than in the low- and intermediate-grade groups ( p = 0.01). There were also significantly more MRI findings of neck lymph node metastases in the high-grade group than in the low- and intermediate-grade groups ( p