Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging for Assessing the Therapeutic Response of Transcatheter Arterial Chemoembolization in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

: This study aimed to evaluate the therapeutic response of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) with diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI). : Forty-three patients with fifty-nine hepatic cancer nodules were recruited for this study. All patients were treated by TACE. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and DKI (b=0, 800, 1,500, 2,000mm /s) were performed before and one month after initiating TACE. Patients were classified as either progressing groups or non-progressing groups. Mean kurtosis (MK), mean diffusion (MD), and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of the tumor tissue were analyzed. : Twenty-three HCCs were classified as progressing groups, and thirty-six HCCs were non-progressing groups. After TACE, the values of MD and ADC in non-progressing groups (1.92±0.36×10 mm /s, 1.36±0.23×10 mm /s) were greater than progressing groups (1.44±0.32× 10 mm /s, 1.10±0.23×10 mm /s), however, the MK values in non-progressing groups (0.47±0.12) were lower than progressing groups (0.72±0.14). The MK values of tumor among non-progressing patients decreased one month after TACE (0.47±0.12) relative to the preoperative values (0.71±0.12) (