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Sivrioglu, Arıbal, and Hakan: RE: Distinguishing between Renal Cell Carcinoma and Fat Poor Angiomyolipoma in Diffusion-Weighted Imaging
Letter to the Editor

Korean Journal of Radiology 2017; 18(2): 410-411.

Published online: 7 February 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3348/kjr.2017.18.2.410

RE: Distinguishing between Renal Cell Carcinoma and Fat Poor Angiomyolipoma in Diffusion-Weighted Imaging

Ali Kemal Sivrioglu, MD, Serkan Arıbal, MD, Önder Hakan, MD

Department of Radiology, Okmeydani Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul 34384, Turkey.

1Department of Radiology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai Institute of Medical Imaging, Shanghai 200032, China.

2Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd., Shenzhen 518057, China.

Corresponding author: Ali Kemal Sivrioglu, MD, Department of Radiology, Okmeydani Education and Research Hospital, Kaptanpasa Mah. Darülaceze Cad. No: 27 34384, Okmeydanı-Şişli, Istanbul 34384, Turkey. Tel: (90212) 5414801, Fax: (90212) 540-4660, draksivrioglu@gmail.com

Received 26 December 2016       Accepted 26 December 2016

Copyright © 2017 The Korean Society of Radiology

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords: Intravoxel incoherent motion, Diffusion-weighted imaging, Renal cell carcinoma, Angiomyolipoma

We have read with interest the article of Ding et al. (1), entitled “Comparison of biexponential and monoexponential model of diffusion-weighted imaging for distinguishing between common renal cell carcinoma and fat poor angiomyolipoma”, which was published in the Nov-Dec. 2016 issue of the journal. The study provides useful information. However, we would like to add a few comments.
Angiomyolipoma (AML), the most common tumor of mesenchymal origin, is characterised morphologically by abnormal vessels, smooth muscle cells and fatty tissue (1). It is considered as neoplasia based on the metastatic potential of some epithelioid type AMLs. Most epithelioid type AMLs are benign; but lesions with hypercellularity, atypia, and necrosis, are considered as potentially malignant (2). Some lipid-poor AMLs are characterised by these histological features, hence, surgical treatment would be indicated, contrary to the author's suggestion that surgery is uneccessary for such cases.
In some AMLs, fusiform cells comprise the dominant component. These lesions are suggestive of leiomyoma based on appearance as well as pathological features. Restricted diffusion in renal leiomyomas has been previously reported (3). Therefore, the low apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values in these lesions are the result of reduced extracellular water compartment due to fusiform cells rather than the collagen excess mentioned in the article.
The authors report the occurrence of hemorrhagic and cystic areas between the cells in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC); however, the cellular structure is more compact in lipid-poor AMLs. Thus, the structure is heterogeneous in ccRCC but homogeneous in lipid-poor AMLs. In Table 2, the authors compare the ADC and intravoxel incoherent motion parameters between the two lesions. The results indicate that the ADC and D have larger standard deviations (diffusion coefficient) in ccRCC, as compared to AMLs, thus, reflecting the lesions' microstructure more accurately than complex histogram analyses. In support of this approach to the data analyses, Hardie et al. (4), showed that standard deviations were more accurate than ADC values in distinguishing between hemangioma and metastases.

References

1. Ding Y, Zeng M, Rao S, Chen C, Fu C, Zhou J. Comparison of biexponential and monoexponential model of diffusion-weighted imaging for distinguishing between common renal cell carcinoma and fat poor angiomyolipoma. Korean J Radiol. 2016; 17:853–863.
2. Cibas ES, Goss GA, Kulke MH, Demetri GD, Fletcher CD. Malignant epithelioid angiomyolipoma (‘sarcoma ex angiomyolipoma’) of the kidney: a case report and review of the literature. Am J Surg Pathol. 2001; 25:121–126.
3. Sivrioglu AK, Tutar S, Kafadar C, Kara K. The diffusion-weighted imaging of renal leiomyoma. Abdom Radiol (NY). 2016; 41:1215–1216.
4. Hardie AD, Egbert RE, Rissing MS. Improved differentiation between hepatic hemangioma and metastases on diffusion-weighted MRI by measurement of standard deviation of apparent diffusion coefficient. Clin Imaging. 2015; 39:654–658.
Yuqin Ding, MD1, Mengsu Zeng, MD, PhD1, Shengxiang Rao, MD1, Caizhong Chen, MD1, Caixia Fu, MD2, Jianjun Zhou, MD1

Department of Radiology, Okmeydani Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul 34384, Turkey.

1Department of Radiology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai Institute of Medical Imaging, Shanghai 200032, China.

2Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd., Shenzhen 518057, China.

First, we would like to express our appreciation for your valuable feedback. We agree that epithelioid type angiomyolipomas (AMLs) must be defined as potentially malignant lesions. In the introduction, we stated that “Differentiation among clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), non-ccRCC and fat poor AML is difficult but essential for treatment planning.” However, we did not mean that surgical treatment was unnecessary. Active surveillance is the accepted management for small asymptomatic masses (1). Most patients with large AMLs > 4 cm can be offered active surveillance as an initial management strategy (2). In the discussion section, we explained that “The greater cellular density and collagenous interstitial stroma that reduced water diffusion velocity might contribute to the decreased apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and D values of fat poor AMLs.” However, we did not conduct quantitative studies on cell number and interstitial components of the renal lesions. We mainly referred to the study of Squillaci et al. (3), which suggests that while AML has significant cellularity comprising different amounts of smooth muscle and adipose tissue, the vasculature contains collagenous interstitial stroma that reduces water diffusion velocity, thus resulting in low ADC values that overlap with the ADC values of renal cell carcinoma. We considered the compact fusiform cells (smooth muscle cells) as the main but not only reason for low ADC values. Although histogram analysis of intravoxel incoherent motion-derived parameters and the diagnostic performance were not discussed in our study, we do not agree with the comment that the use of standard deviations is more accurate than histogram analyses to evaluate the microstructure of renal lesions. Histogram analysis reflects properties of the entire lesion rather than particular slices or small regions within a slice. In addition, this method also decreases the subjectivity inherent to visual assessment of the selected region of interest and might allow better reproducibility (4).

References

1. Flum AS, Hamoui N, Said MA, Yang XJ, Casalino DD, McGuire BB, et al. Update on the diagnosis and management of renal angiomyolipoma. J Urol. 2016; 195(4 pt 1):834–846.
2. Bhatt JR, Richard PO, Kim NS, Finelli A, Manickavachagam K, Legere L, et al. Natural history of renal angiomyolipoma (AML): most patients with large AMLs > 4 cm can be offered active surveillance as an initial management strategy. Eur Urol. 2016; 70:85–90.
3. Squillaci E, Manenti G, Cova M, Di Roma M, Miano R, Palmieri G, et al. Correlation of diffusion-weighted MR imaging with cellularity of renal tumours. Anticancer Res. 2004; 24:4175–4179.
4. Nougaret S, Vargas HA, Lakhman Y, Sudre R, Do RK, Bibeau F, et al. Intravoxel incoherent motion-derived histogram metrics for assessment of response after combined chemotherapy and radiation therapy in rectal cancer: initial experience and comparison between single-section and volumetric analyses. Radiology. 2016; 280:446–454.
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