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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Feb 28, 2016; 8(2): 174-182
Published online Feb 28, 2016. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v8.i2.174
Benign neck masses showing restricted diffusion: Is there a histological basis for discordant behavior?
Abanti Das, Ashu S Bhalla, Raju Sharma, Atin Kumar, Meher Sharma, Shivanand Gamanagatti, Alok Thakar, Suresh Sharma
Abanti Das, Ashu S Bhalla, Raju Sharma, Atin Kumar, Shivanand Gamanagatti, Department of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India
Meher Sharma, Department of Pathology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India
Alok Thakar, Suresh Sharma, Department of Otolaryngorhinology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi 110029, India
Author contributions: Das A, Bhalla AS, Sharma R and Kumar A contributed to study design and conception and writing the article; critically analyzing the scientific content and image preparation; Sharma M contributed to image preparation and reviewing the article; Gamanagatti S, Thakar A and Sharma S contributed to article preparation and approving the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ashu Seith Bhalla, Professor, Department of Radiodiagnosis, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029, India. ashubhalla1@yahoo.com
Telephone: +91-011-26594925
Received: June 16, 2015
Peer-review started: June 17, 2015
First decision: August 22 2015
Revised: September 29, 2015
Accepted: December 18, 2015
Article in press: December 21, 2015
Published online: February 28, 2016
Processing time: 255 Days and 22 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Diffusion weighted imaging improves lesion characterization by providing functional information. However, apart from tissue cellularity, histological background of the lesion can significantly influence the diffusion characteristics of the lesion. Consequently, even benign lesions with atypical histology can show restricted diffusion leading to potential errors in diagnosis.