Abstract. Prompt and accurate diagnosis is critical in the treatment of acute cholecystitis. Diffusion-weighted whole-body magnetic resonance imaging with background body signal suppression/T2 image fusion (DWIBS/T2) identifies areas with high signal intensity, corresponding to inflammation. In the present study, the records and images of patients with acute cholecystitis who underwent DWIBS/T2 between January 2013 and March 2014 were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 11 patients with acute cholecystitis were enrolled. In one patient, DWIBS/T2 identified a thickened wall and high signal intensity, with high signal intensity in the pericholecystic space that suggested localized peritonitis. Positive DWIBS/T2 results indicating acute cholecystitis were obtained in 10/11 patients, with a sensitivity of 90.9%. In addition, wall thickening and high signal intensity were absent in DWIBS/T2 images when wall thickening was not detected by computed tomography. Wall thickening and high signal intensity was attenuated when patients with acute cholecystitis were clinically treated. These data suggest that a thickened gallbladder wall and high signal intensity are indicative of acute cholecystitis and that DWIBS/T2 may be a useful technique in evaluating the severity of acute cholecystitis.
IntroductionAcute cholecystitis is characterized by inflammation of the gallbladder and typically occurs due to obstruction of the gallbladder neck or cystic duct by a gallstone (1). Gallbladder infection may also spread to the liver or pericholecystic cavity and lead to the development of liver abscesses or peritonitis, respectively (2-4). Therefore, prompt treatment with cholecystectomy, percutaneous transhepatic gallbladder drainage or aspiration is typically recommended following diagnosis of acute cholecystitis (5-7). Accurate diagnosis is also critical for the appropriate management of acute cholecystitis (8).Diffusion-weighted whole-body magnetic resonance imaging with background body signal suppression (DWIBS) is based on a diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) technique, which enables visualization of the random movement of water molecules (Brownian motion) for diagnostic imaging (9). Images are acquired with DWIBS during free breathing of the patient through the use of multiple-signal averaging, fat suppression and heavy diffusion weighting (10). In particular, a high signal intensity of DWIBS is a positive indicator of cancer and inflammation. An advantage of DWIBS over DWI is that it exhibits positive signals with strong contrast against surrounding normal tissues. However, the evaluation of positive signals to obtain anatomical information becomes difficult when signals in the surrounding tissues are suppressed (11,12). Images obtained from DWIBS are fused with their corresponding T2-weighted images using a workstation (13-15). DWIBS and T2-weighted image fusion (DWIBS/T2) enables anatomical evaluation of the positive signals obtained from DWIBS (16). Therefore, the present study retrospectively analyzed images obtained by DWIB...