Pitfalls in Abdominal Diffusion-Weighted Imaging: How Predictive is Restricted Water Diffusion for Malignancy

Abstract

Restricted diffusion is generally considered to be associated with malignant tumors because of the high cellularity of these tumors. However, in interpretation of diffusion-weighted images, it should be kept in mind that a number of benign lesions, as many as 22% in our cohort, can exhibit restricted diffusion on images with high b values, thus mimicking malignant lesions.