Quantitative analysis of age-related changes in cervical lymph nodes using diffusion-weighted imaging

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate age-related changes in apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of cervical lymph nodes using diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Materials: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients who underwent pantomography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) between November 2017 and July 2018. The participants comprised 101 patients with 389 nodes (males: 22, females: 79, mean age: 44.33 [range: 14–77] years). The correlation between the age group of the criterion variable and ADC value of the explanatory variable was analyzed using Spearman's correlation coefficient. p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: There was a significant negative correlation between age and the ADC values for each sex (p < 0.001). The mean ADC value of the submandibular nodes for all age groups was 0.88 ± 0.15 × 10⁻³ mm²/s in men and 0.83 ± 0.12 × 10⁻³ mm²/s in women (p = 0.211). The mean ADC value of the superior internal jugular nodes for all age groups was 0.90 ± 0.14 × 10⁻³ mm²/s in men and 0.91 ± 0.16 × 10⁻³ mm²/s in women (p = 0.857). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that normal ADC values of cervical lymph nodes exhibited significant negative correlation with increasing age. These findings could be useful for the diagnosis of cervical lymph node diseases, including malignant tumors.