Histopathologic diversity of gastric cancers: Relationship between enhancement pattern on dynamic contrast-enhanced CT and histological type

Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced computed tomography gastrography (CE-CTG) to predict the histological type of gastric cancer.

Materials and methods: We analyzed 47 consecutive patients with resectable advanced gastric cancer preoperatively evaluated by multiphasic dynamic contrast-enhanced CT. Two radiologists independently reviewed the CT images and they determined the peak enhancement phase, and then measured the CT attenuation value of the gastric lesion for each phase. The histological types of gastric cancers were assigned to three groups as differentiated-type, undifferentiated-type, and mixed-type. We compared the peak enhancement phase of the three types and compared the CT attenuation values in each phase.

Results: The peak enhancement was significantly different between the three types of gastric cancers for both readers (reader 1, p=0.001; reader 2, p=0.009); most of the undifferentiated types had peak enhancement in the delayed phase. The CT attenuation values of undifferentiated type were significantly higher than those of differentiated or mixed type in the delayed phase according to both readers (reader 1, p=0.002; reader 2, p=0.004).

Conclusion: CE-CTG could provide helpful information in diagnosing the histological type of gastric cancers preoperatively.