Purpose: The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the usefulness of hydro-CT in the diagnosis of gastric tumors in comparison to endoscopy.
Material and methods: The study involved 40 patients with a diagnosis of gastric tumor established by histopathology who underwent endoscopy and conventional or low-dose hydro-CT. Hydro-CT images were retrospectively analyzed based on the consensus of two radiologists who were blinded to the endoscopy findings. The diagnostic accuracy of hydro-CT and endoscopy for the diagnosis of gastric tumors was evaluated using the results of the histopathological examination as the reference standard.
Results: Histopathology confirmed the presence of gastric cancer in 28 patients (70%), while gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) were recognized in the remaining 12 cases (30%). Correct diagnoses of the type of gastric tumor in hydro-CT were obtained in 37 patients (92.5%). This was not significantly different from the 85% accuracy of endoscopy. Further analysis showed that the correctness of GIST diagnosis in endoscopy and hydro-CT also did not differ significantly (91.7% and 100% respectively). The percentage of correctly diagnosed malignant lesions in hydro-CT was lower than for GISTs at 89.29%, while in endoscopy it was insignificantly lower (82.14%). The diagnostic accuracy of conventional and low-dose hydro-CT in the diagnosis of gastric tumors (95% and 90% respectively) was not significantly different.
Conclusions: Conventional and low-dose hydro-CT may be a valuable non-invasive diagnostic method in the diagnosis of gastric tumors for patients who have contraindications to endoscopy or who are unable to undergo gastric biopsy.
Keywords: Conventional hydro-CT; Gastric tumor; Low-dose hydro-CT; Optical endoscopy.
Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.