ArticleLa Radiologia medica2026
Diagnostic accuracy of third-generation dual-source dual-energy CT virtual non-contrast vs true non-contrast imaging in adrenal gland masses: a comparative study following the ACR guidelines.
Article in La Radiologia medica, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo assess whether virtual non-contrast (VNC) images are diagnostically equivalent to true non-contrast (TNC) images in differentiating adrenal adenomas from metastases. MATERIALS AND
methodConsecutive oncologic patients who underwent staging CT examinations performed on a third-generation dual-source CT scanner between January 2016 and February 2023 with adrenal lesion with histopathologic or MRI confirmation were retrospectively included. Adrenal lesion attenuation values were measured on TNC and VNC reconstructions and directly compared. Subsequently, the diagnostic accuracy of both reconstructions for differentiating adrenal adenomas from metastases was evaluated at predefined attenuation thresholds, including ≤ 10 HU (ACR threshold) and ≤ 20 HU (optimized threshold). Diagnostic performance was assessed using ROC curve analysis, while Bland-Altman analysis was performed to evaluate agreement between TNC and VNC measurements.
resultsA total of 439 patients (mean age: 63 ± 11 years) with incidental adrenal lesions were included. TNC and VNC showed significant difference in attenuation values with clear discrimination between adenomas and metastases based on attenuation distributions (all p < 0.0001). Bland-Altman analysis demonstrated close agreement between techniques (mean difference: - 0.4 HU; LoA: - 3.5-2.8 HU). ROC curve demonstrated excellent diagnostic accuracy for both TNC and VNC, with AUC values of 0.923 and 0.928, respectively. Using ACR threshold (≤ 10 HU), VNC showed slightly higher specificity (94.3% vs 93.3%), while TNC showed marginally higher sensitivity (57.1% vs. 55.5%). At ≤ 20 HU, TNC achieved higher sensitivity (98.8% vs. 96.7%), whereas VNC provided greater specificity (75.8% vs. 54.6%); however, increasing the threshold resulted in a higher number of misclassified lesions.
conclusionVNC imaging provides diagnostic accuracy comparable to TNC for adrenal lesion evaluation while enabling substantial radiation dose savings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42295587What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.