| Summary: | Purpose: The aim of the study is to evaluate the potential of Intravoxel incoherent motion model of diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) in the differentiation of local colorectal cancer recurrence (LCR) from scar/fibrosis tissue in patients that underwent chemo-radiation therapy followed by the total mesorectal excision (TME) for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). Methods: Fifty-six patients were retrospectively included for the image analysis. Diffusion and perfusion parameters were extracted by DWI data (apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), pseudo-diffusion coefficient (Dp), perfusion fraction (fp), and tissue diffusivity (Dt)) and DKI data (mean of diffusion coefficient (MD) and mean of diffusional Kurtosis). Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney U test, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, and area under ROC curve (AUC) were used in a univariate statistical analysis. Backward stepwise multivariate logistic regression analysis was also performed. Results: LCR was found in 34 patients and treatment related changes such as scar/fibrosis tissue in 22 patients. At univariate analysis, low performance was reached by the mean value of Kurtosis with and AUC of 0.72 and an accuracy of 75%, respectively. Considering a regression model obtained as weighted sum of the ADC, Kurtosis, fp and Dp mean values, reached an AUC of 0.82 with a sensitivity of 72%, a specificity of 93%, and an accuracy of 81%. Conclusions: DWI derived parameters combined with DKI derived metrics in a multivariate model could allow differentiating of local colorectal recurrence from scar/fibrosis tissue after TME of LARC.
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