KEY POINTS
The aims of this study were first to calculate the Positive Predictive
Value (PPV) of DW-MRI to detect cholesteatoma and then to analyze
false positives.
- The number of DW-MRI for identification of cholesteatoma has grown in
ten years
- We calculated an 89% PPV
- DW-MRI sensitivities were 100.0% and 70.7% for respectively keratin
and squamous epithelium.
- DW-MRI hypersignal is not synonymous of cholesteatoma diagnosis.
Indeed, this diagnosis relies on the importance of a proper otoscopic
examination, a suggestive medical history, CT scan data and analysis
of other MRI sequences, including T1-weighted sequence, to rule out
other etiologies of middle ear DW-MRI hypersignal.