Objective To discuss the CT imaging differences between hepatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods The clinical and CT data of 42 patients with hepatic NENs (hepatic NENs group) and 49 patients with HCC (HCC group), who were confirmed by pathology in the West China Hospital of Sichuan University from June 2011 to June 2016, were collected and analyzed retrospectively. This study was based on whether the lesions were larger than 3 cm or not, then CT findings of hepatic NENs patients and HCC patients in different stratification were compared. Results When the lesions were less than 3 cm, the location, contour, and enhancement patterns in the portal vein phase of the tumor had significant differences between the hepatic NENs group and the HCC group (P<0.05), multiple liver lesions, the round shape, and prolonged enhancement in the portal vein phase were more often seen in the hepatic NENs group, but there was no significant on diameter of tumor, boundary of lesion, pseudocapsules, scan density, hypervascularity, enhancement degree in arterial phase, enhancement patterns in arterial phase, daughter foci at liver, retraction, neoplastic artery, arteriovenous invaded, portal vein tumor thrombus, diameter of lymph node, and enhancement degree of lymph node between the 2 groups (P>0.05). And when the lesions were greater than or equal to 3 cm, the location, contour, enhancement patterns in the portal vein phase of the tumor, pseudocapsule, neoplastic artery, and arteriovenous invaded had significant differences between the hepatic NENs group and the HCC group (P<0.05), these CT images were often seen in the hepatic NENs group, such as multiple liver lesions, the lobulated shape, the portal venous phase continuous strengthening, no pseudocapsule, no neoplastic artery, and no arteriovenous invaded, but there was no significant difference on the diameter of tumor, boundary of lesion, scan density, hypervascularity, enhancement degree in arterial phase, enhancement patterns in arterial phase, daughter foci at liver, retraction, portal vein tumor thrombus, diameter of lymph node, and enhancement degree of lymph node between the2 groups (P>0.05). Conclusions No matter whether the lesions’ size are larger than 3 cm or not, the location, contour, and enhancement patterns in the portal vein phase could help for differentiating hepatic NENs from HCC. When the lessions are larger than 3 cm, pseudocapsule, neoplastic artery, and arteriovenous invaded may be useful to differentiate.
ObjectiveTo analyze the relevant risk factors affecting postoperative relapse-free survival (RFS) in the primary gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) and develop a Nomogram predictive model of postoperative RFS for the GIST patients. MethodsThe patients diagnosed with GIST by postoperative pathology from January 2011 to December 2020 at the First Hospital of Lanzhou University and Gansu Provincial People’s Hospital were collected, and then were randomly divided into a training set and a validation set at a ratio of 7∶3 using R software function. The univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis were used to identify the risk factors affecting the RFS for the GIST patients after surgery, and then based on this, the Nomogram predictive model was constructed to predict the probability of RFS at 3- and 5-year after surgery for the patients with GIST. The effectiveness of the Nomogram was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), consistency index (C-index), and calibration curve, and the clinical utility of the Nomogram and the modified National Institutes of Health (M-NIH) classification standard was evaluated using the decision curve analysis (DCA). ResultsA total of 454 patients were included, including 317 in the training set and 137 in the validation set. The results of multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the tumor location, tumor size, differentiation degree, American Joint Committee onCancer TNM stage, mitotic rate, CD34 expression, treatment method, number of lymph node detection, and targeted drug treatment time were the influencing factors of postoperative RFS for the GIST patients (P<0.05). The Nomogram predictive model was constructed based on the influencing factors. The C-index of the Nomogram in the training set and validation set were 0.731 [95%CI (0.679, 0.783)] and 0.685 [95%CI (0.647, 0.722)], respectively. The AUC (95%CI) of distinguishing the RFS at 3- and 5-year after surgery were 0.764 (0.681, 0.846) and 0.724 (0.661, 0.787) in the training set and 0.749 (0.625, 0.872) and 0.739 (0.647, 0.832) in the validation set, respectively. The calibration curve results showed that a good consistency of the 3-year and 5-year recurrence free survival rates between the predicted results and the actual results in the training set, while which was slightly poor in the validation set. There was a higher net benefit for the 3-year recurrence free survival rate after GIST surgery when the threshold probability range was 0.19 to 0.57. When the threshold probability range was 0.44 to 0.83, there was a higher net benefit for the 5-year recurrence free survival rate after GIST surgery. And within the threshold probability ranges, the net benefit of the Nomogram was better than the M-NIH classification system at the corresponding threshold probability. ConclusionsThe results of this study suggest that the patients with GIST located in the other sites (mainly including the esophagus, duodenum, and retroperitoneum), with tumor size greater than 5 cm, poor or undifferentiated differentiation, mitotic rate lower than 5/50 HPF, negative CD34 expression, ablation treatment, number of lymph nodes detected more than 4, and targeted drug treatment time less than 3 months need to closely pay attentions to the postoperative recurrence. The discrimination and clinical applicability of the Nomogram predictive model are good.