Feasibility Study of Using Intravoxel Incoherent Motion MRI to Detect Parotid Gland Abnormalities in Early-Stage Sjogren Syndrome Patients

Purpose: To determine whether intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could detect parotid gland abnormalities in Sjogren's syndrome (SS) patients who were not identified by conventional MRI. Materials and Methods: Ten consecutive patients with clinically proven SS who were not identified by conventional MRI were assessed by IVIM MRI with a 3.0T MRI scanner. Quantitative parameters (tissue diffusivity, D; pseudodiffusion coefficient, D*; perfusion fraction, f) derived from IVIM MRI were compared between the SS group and healthy control group (n = 15). A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of each significant parameter. Results: Excellent inter-and intrareader agreements were obtained during the measurement of D, f, and D* values (interreader, 0.980, 0.942, and 0.883; intrareader, 0.991, 0.952, and 0.896, respectively). All three parameters of the SS group were significantly higher than those of the healthy group (D, 1.049 +/- 0.056 x 10(23) mm(2)/s vs. 0.976 +/- 0.116 x 10(23) mm(2)/s, P = 0.012; D*, 20.410 +/- 1.786 x 10(23) mm(2)/s vs. 18.764 +/- 2.433 x 10(23) mm(2)/s, P = 0.013; f, 0.207 +/- 0.003 vs. 0.182 +/- 0.002, P = 0.004). ROC analysis showed that the f value had the best diagnostic performance (AUC, 0.712; Sensitivity, 0.80; Specificity, 0.57; Cutoff value, 0.185) in detecting the parotid gland abnormalities in early SS patients. Conclusion: IVIM MRI detected parotid gland abnormalities in early-stage SS patients.