Can an apparent diffusion coefficient of uterine fibroid before uterine artery embolization predict potential fibroid response?

Objectives: ACOG guidance confirms the use of uterine artery embolisation (UAE) as an alternative to hysterectomy or myomectomy. The main objective of this article is to evaluate the ability of preoperative magnetic resonance ımaging (MRI) to study the relationship between uterine fibroid reduction and diffusion coefficient (ADC) value after UAE. This is a relevant topic with the growing interest in using ADC as a noninvasive imaging biomarker for monitoring tissue changes and predicting uterine fibroid response to UAE over the past years.

Material and methods: In this prospective controlled non-randomized trial; uterine fibroid volume, fibroid diameter, uterine volume, fibroid ADC and normal myometrium ADC were recorded before and after UAE. Wilcoxon test was used in the analysis of the dependent quantitative data. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated between post-UAE uterine volume, fibroid volume, and average fibroid diameter reduction and the patient's age, parity, gravidity, fibroid ADC and myometrial ADC before UAE.

Results: The mean fibroid volume reduction was 36.0% (range between 17.3-77.7%). Mean fibroid diameter, fibroid volume, uterine volume, and myometrium ADC values after UAE were significantly lower than before the procedure (p = 0.002, < 0.001, 0.001, 0.006 respectively), but the decrease in fibroid ADC is not significant. As a result decrease in fibroid volume was greater as pre-UAE fibroid ADC values increased, and that finding may contribute to the selection of the patients for the procedure.

Conclusions: The ADC value before UAE was positively correlated with fibroid volume reduction.